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Response to Ryan Lambert’s Preds Eulogy on Yahoo!…

For those who didn’t see it, Ryan Lambert of Puck Daddy wrote this little ditty today. While we shouldn’t recognize it with a response, we’re giving one anyway…

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Dear Mr. Lambert,

First of all, thanks for visiting our site. We really appreciate that. You’re linking to us has not only grown our traffic but has helped people realize that Nashville does, in fact, have some passionate hockey fans who are actually knowledgeable about the game.

Secondly, you’re obviously bitter that your Calgary Flames didn’t make the playoffs. I am so sorry to hear that. I really thought that by bringing in proven winners like Vesa Toskala, Ales Kotalik, Niklas Hagman, Ian White and half of the Toronto Maple Leafs roster would put you guys in the post season for sure. Man… tough luck.

Thirdly, you must’ve gotten a misprinted article or something because Nashville actually sold out two Stanley Cup Playoff games, not one. You should probably inform your source of information so they can correct that egregious error. After all, you’re a well-decorated and highly respected member of the media and wouldn’t want your readers looking at false info, would you?

Fourthly, I just wanted to let you know that you made a couple elementary errors in your blog. And I know for a writer of your stature, you only want to put the absolute best work out there for an entire continent to read. The first error is at the beginning when you wrote “but I need you ask yourself one question”. Clearly you meant to say “I need you to ask yourself.” The second error is toward the end when you wrote “…or Boston if they cut to guy going…” You obviously meant “cut to the guy.” Don’t feel too bad. Basic sentences are hard to write sometimes. I understand. I make them all the time. You’ll probably find some in this letter I’m sending you. But, then again, I’m not writing for Yahoo! Sports’ Puck Daddy. I’m just a lonely little Nashville Predators blogger.

Lastly, I see that you spent zero time talking about how Nashville played in the series. Instead, you opted to echo what everyone else who’s unknowledgeable and threatened does about a non-traditional market: attack the fan base. I am so sorry to read yours (and everyone else’s) thoughts on Nashville as a market. It’s just too bad that you haven’t been to a game here to experience it for yourself and thus have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s also too bad that you didn’t take the time to break down the series and how the Predators played which, I’m pretty sure, is what Puck Daddy wanted you to do. You know, considering you were writing a eulogy to the Preds’ season and all.

Since you decided to take the easy way out and write the same old uninformed, selfish, stereotypical crap that everyone in Canada’s been writing for, oh I don’t know… 12 years now, I wanted to help you out a little bit. So here goes….

(Be patient with me though because I’m only a blogger from Tennessee who obviously doesn’t know as much as you do about that sport they play on skates and stuff.)

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Eulogy: Remembering the 2009-10 Nashville Predators
by Jeremy K. Gover

(Ed. Note: As the Stanley Cup Playoffs continue, we’re bound to lose some friends along the journey. We’ve asked for these losers, gone but not forgotten, to be eulogized by douche bags who don’t know anything about the team they’re writing about whatsoever. So here’s someone who does: section303.com’s Jeremy K. Gover, remembering the Nashville Predators the correct way.)

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of the Nashville Predators.

They were set to be one of the stories of the NHL’s post season but came up a mental error and a few power play goals short.

There’s a lot to be said for posting 100 points in the tough Western Conference. There’s also a lot to be said for a team starting off the season looking like the worst team since the 1974-75 Washington Capitals but ending in seventh place. And there’s a lot to be said for winning a team’s first ever road playoff game.

Of course, there’s also a lot to be said when one of the top paid players makes a bad decision so heinous, that it cost his team a 3-2 series lead, and thus very well may have cost them advancing to the second round.

In a way, you feel bad for Martin Erat. The guy overcomes a horrendous start to the regular season and rebounds for 18 points in the month of December. He cools off a little but still goes onto finish third in team scoring with 49 points. Then the playoffs begin and he bags himself an empty net goal and two more tallies that are instrumental in putting the Predators up 4-3 in a game they have no business being in. But, with under 0:25 remaining in Game 5 – with an improbable 3-2 series lead in their sights – he centers the puck from behind the end line while on the power play. The pass goes to nobody (because nobody except the scratched Patric Hornqvist is ever in front of the net for the Preds) and Chicago takes it down the ice and scores the game-tying goal shorthanded.

Then the other self-imposed nemesis rears it’s ugly head. The Nashville power(less) play.

The Nashville fan base shrugs it off saying, “when overtime starts, we’ve got four minutes of power play time” due to Marian Hossa’s controversial boarding penalty on defenseman Dan Hamhuis. But, as it has so often in the regular season and in the playoffs, the Preds’ powerplay fails to generate any offense during those four minutes and the Blackhawks come down and score to win the game. And who gets the winning goal? You guessed it: Hossa. Game over.

I could take you through Game 6 but, really, there’s no need. Yes it was a good game with lots of scoring (in the first period) and yes Nashville gave a valiant effort in front of a sold out Bridgestone Arena but, in hindsight, the series was lost because of two things: Erat’s common sense mistake in Game 5 and the outright failure to do anything on the power play all series long.

So Preds fans are forced to look forward to next year… for the 12th season in a row.

Frankly, I’m sick of hearing “we draft well” and “our star players aren’t playing like our star players.” I want to win. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking to win the Stanley Cup this season. I’m a tad more realistic than that. What I want is for this team to be coached well enough to where, when they’re supposed to shoot the puck, they shoot, not pass. I want this team to not dump-and-chase on the power play when their forwards are standing still at the blueline instead of going into the zone with speed. I want this team’s Captain to skate full bore on every shift and not wait until the stretch run to start playing like it matters.

If Nashville could just fix these three things – these three elementary, basic, hockey 101 things – they could increase their position in the standings by at least 15 points year-in and year-out and, most importantly, they’d actually be a force in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

It’s no secret this team has a lot of heart and a lot of passion. It’s also no secret that the fan base does. If the players could just do a few things differently, it would make a world of difference. It’s just too bad they have to wait until next year, once again.

But hey… at least they draft well, right?

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Ryan, I hope my blog comes as a help to you. Since you were supposed to write a eulogy about the Predators’ season – or, at the very least, their post season – I wanted to do what I could to help. Especially considering you didn’t write at all about how their season went, how the series went or the reasons for their demise, hence, a eulogy. Instead, all you wrote was a series of bitter rants toward “all 12” of the fans here in Music City. Just in case you didn’t know, it’s not the fans that win and lose games, it’s the players on the actual team. And, even though you refuse to give the Predators organization any respect whatsoever, I’m sure you’re precious Flames would love to have a defensive corps as solid as Shea Weber, Ryan Suter, Hamhuis, Francis Bouillon, Cody Franson and Denis Grebeshkov. Heck, now that Calgary traded away Dion Phaneuf, I’m sure you’d trade your entire blueline for just one of Nashville’s defensive pairings.

The bottom line is, you have no business writing about Nashville. You have even less business writing about the Nashville fans. You made it perfectly clear that you have no working knowledge of the Preds or it’s fan base so, instead, all you did was take the easy, stereotypical way out.

Real classy. But hey…. who am I other than a guy who can run circles around you on the ice and off?

Oh I’m sorry… I meant skate circles. How dare a Nashvillian like me try to talk ‘bout dat dere hockey game.

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