No Cup, but Nashville is a winner
The real story of this NHL final was how a city in Tennessee embraced the game
ANASHVILLE, Tenn. nd then, in the noisiest arena in all of hockey, there was silence. Really, no one knew what to think, how to behave, what exactly to feel. It was all so new, this Stanley Cup business — all so remarkable, so alive, so engaging, and now, so over.
There has never been a hockey season like this one, where one city and one place and one team became central to everything that was the game. That’s what makes this Stanley Cup final so special.
This was the rare championship without a loser, although it might not have felt like that late Sunday night. Nashville won the playoffs, it just didn’t win the Stanley Cup. There is no award for best city, best arena, best atmosphere, best time.
As the Pittsburgh Penguins passed the Stanley Cup, most of the seats at the Bridgestone Arena were empty. Most of the men and women all dressed in gold had filtered out of the arena and onto Broadway, where there is no last call.
It was a hot night to get a cool drink, and another night for the National Hockey League to explain exactly what went wrong — and how the Predators were robbed.
The Penguins scored an almost fluky goal with 1:35 to play in the third period — Patric Hornqvist, the former Predator, was behind the goal-line when he banked the puck off Pekka Rinne’s shoulder and into the Nashville net. The goal came almost 38 minutes after Nashville had apparently scored the first goal of Game 6, a goal that should have counted had referee Kevin Pollack not prematurely blown his whistle.
This wasn’t a foot-in-the-crease ending for the NHL, but it was close to that. The Preds had plenty of time to win this game after the disallowed goal. They even had a brief five-onthree in the third period. They just couldn’t find a way. Champions have a way of clearing that path, no matter how challenging.
This was the only evenly played game of the series. The only game either team could have won The only memorable game of the six. It won’t feel that way for Nashville today or tomorrow. A month from now, a year from now, years from now, this will be that year to remember — the year they almost won the Stanley Cup.
For some places, this is as close as they ever get.
Right after Carl Hagelin scored an empty-net goal, the crowd at Bridgestone couldn’t control itself. They couldn’t lose well. They have no experience at this. They booed the officials all the way off the ice and chanted “Ref, you suck.”
They booed the Penguins’ celebration behind the Pittsburgh goal. They pelted the ice with all kinds of debris. They booed Gary Bettman — doesn’t everybody? — when he came out to present the Conn Smythe Trophy and the Stanley Cup to Sidney Crosby. They booed Crosby as he carried the Cup on his first lap.
Then many of them walked out in anger.
The Predators left the ice. The loudest fans in hockey were silenced by circumstance. Crosby and Evgeni Malkin now have their third Stanley Cup, one more than their owner, Mario Lemieux, won as a player. Chris Kunitz won his fourth.
Marc-Andre Fleury, in likely his last night as a Penguin, carried the Cup, but not until Crosby handed it to Ron Hainsey, who handed it Matt Cullen, likely playing his last NHL game at the age of 40.
The celebration seemed just a little different here, a little emptier, a little less lively to everyone but the Pittsburgh players. The end was like a collective punch in the gut for a Predators team and its newbie excitable fan base, and sadness for the lifer David Poile, who deserved a happy ending.
“Remember this feeling,” P.K. Subban said, after it was over.
That’s what to take from this. It will be hard for everyone to forget: the players, the fans, the people who took to hockey on the streets in this eight-week party called the playoffs.
About 30 minutes after it was over, there were maybe 100 fans left at Bridgestone. They needed to be heard one more time. They needed to say something.
They loudly chanted “Let’s Go Preds” for the final time this hockey season. The building almost rocked, and then they just walked away.