Home ice Predators’ edge
district attorney Stephen Zappala decided to drop all charges against the perp and let him walk. I wish they had kept him locked up for a few days. If he lawyered up and won, so be it. At least it would have cost him or his backers at an attention-starved Nashville radio station significant money.
As it is, the fool returned to “Smashville” — as the Tennessee capital likes to call itself these days — as a hero. A Nashville fish market is giving away free catfish to take to Game 3, presumably in his honor. He’ll probably drop the ceremonial first puck for the first Cup final home game in Predators history.
Does that make you sick or what?
The whole catfish business stinks. It almost makes me feel sorry for Nashville. You would think they would have come up with something original instead of stealing the concept from Detroit and its octopuses. I just hope none of the Penguins get hit and hurt by a flying instrument of … OK, a flying fish. It’s not as if the Predators need catfish to have homeice advantage. I have a feeling Bridgestone is going to remind me of the Civic Arena back in the day — without the class, of course. Remember what it was like in Pittsburgh in 1991 when the Penguins were new to the Cup thing? The arena throbbed. So it will be Saturday night at 501 Broadway, the big building at the end of a bunch of honky-tonks that are so much more appealing than ray-finned fish. What other town can throw out Alan Jackson for a free pregame concert or hand the microphone to Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, Keith Urban and Lady Antebellum for the national anthem with, perhaps, Martina McBride on deck? At least for one night, Nashville will be the party capital of not just the South and the hockey world, but the entire country and maybe even the free world. Not to exaggerate. You have to understand Nashville has had little in sports that has made it proud. It did play host to one of the NFL’s great games, the Music City Miracle in the playoffs after the 1999 season. The Titans won that wild-card game, beating the Buffalo Bills in the final seconds when, on a kickoff, Frank Wycheck threw a lateral pass across the field to Kevin Dyson, who returned it 75 yards for a touchdown. But other than that? Nothing. Nashville has been the City of Losers. Even the 1999 Titans lost in Super Bowl XXXIV, 23-16, when St. Louis linebacker Mike Jones tackled Dyson at the Rams 1 as the gun sounded.
But now, Nashville has the Predators, who breezed to the Cup final by sweeping Chicago and beating St. Louis and Anaheim. The team’s success at Bridgestone was the difference. Going back to the playoffs last spring, the Predators are 11-1 in home playoff games. They couldn’t wait to get back after losing Games 1 and 2 in Pittsburgh.
Matt Cullen played with the Nashville club from 2013-15 before joining the Penguins. He knows what to expect. “It’s going to be electric. It’s a pretty passionate fan base.”
Mike Sullivan also has a pretty good idea what his Penguins will face. “I think we have to embrace the energy that’s going to be in the city and in the building.”
I’m pretty sure the intense crowd will have no impact on the Penguins, a waddle of professional athletes of the highest order and the defending Cup champions. I don’t think fans ever intimidate the visiting team. It didn’t even happen in the greatest sporting event in Pittsburgh in the past 50-plus years.
“Cway-toe! Cway-toe! Cway-toe!”
The PNC Park crowd didn’t beat Cincinnati Reds starter Johnny Cueto in the 2013 wild-card game. Marlon Byrd and Russell Martin beat him with home runs for the Pirates.
But fans can push the home team to the next level. That’s what the PNC Park crowd did for the Pirates against the Reds. “I can still remember walking out to center field to warm up,” Martin said of that wildcard game. “There was so much energy. The whole stadium was vibrating.” And after his home run, which came on the pitch after Cueto dropped the ball — literally — on the mound? “I don’t even remember running around the bases,” Martin said. “I think I just floated.”
The Predators are hoping for the same sort of boost Saturday night. “It’s going to be a tremendous lift,” Nashville coach Peter Laviolette said Thursday, referring to the Bridgestone environment as “explosive.”
The team is counting on the crowd saving Predators goaltender Pekka Rinne’s season. He slipped and fell and couldn’t get up off the PPG Paints Arena ice. He has always been bad against the Penguins, his 17-2 lifetime record against them the proof. He was much worse against them than Columbus goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky and Washington goaltender Braden Holtby were in the first two rounds of the playoffs. And they were awful.
But things will be different in Nashville, Laviolette predicted.For Rinne and for his team. Predators defenseman P.K. Subban guaranteed a win in Game 3.
“You would think leaving Pittsburgh without a win, that might shake their confidence,” Laviolette said of his players. “I can tell you that it doesn’t. I just met with the guys. I can see it in their eyes.”
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
That’s a fish story, right?
Ron Cook: rcook@postgazette.com and Twitter @RonCookPG. Ron Cook can be heard on the “Cook and Poni” show weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan.