Out, About: Ice, ice, baby. Hockey’s (almost) back!

This is an excerpt from the NashVillager newsletter, your human-powered daily guide to Nashville. Click here to subscribe.

Yes, I am from Florida, which famously has no winter. But I am the biggest hockey fan.

Well, second biggest. The true owner of that title is my college best friend, Cayla, who is from Murfreesboro — a town name I was sure she made up when she first said it aloud to me.

I got into hockey because I was a typical soccer-playing Latina growing up (no, for real, this is a pipeline for not just me). Cayla, meanwhile, is a true Tennessean with strong thoughts about classic country, how I say “pecan” and… the nation’s greatest hockey team — to her, the Nashville Predators.

The Preds are a few years younger than my home team, the Florida Panthers, yet y’all have us beat in Stanley Cup playoff appearances. Your arena is at the gates to Lower Broad and all the honky tonks folks outside of Nashville categorize this city by. Your catfish thing is not as deep in lore as the Panthers’ rats, but you sell giant foam cowboy hats at your team store for god’s sake.

Never change, Nashville.

It’s hockey season already?

Not quite, though we are very much so in the active preseason now. (Nashville’s first official game is on Tuesday, Oct. 10.)

You may be surprised to know these weeknight games at Bridgestone Arena have drawn such crowds (just look at that pic above), but it’s true.

You wouldn’t know the difference crossing the Broadway intersection in the usual sea of gold. Well, except for the fact that my tickets — in the upper 300 level — were $25 each.

How are the Preds doing?

Honestly, they’ve been better.

The first few games were against the Panthers (straight off our Stanley Cup run) and the Tampa Bay Lightning. All have ended in losses for Nashville, but they don’t technically mean anything. And there has certainly been growth this week from a shutout loss, to a three-goal gap, to a one-goal game lost in overtime.

And that’s the point of all this, right? To get some real game time in before the start of the season, and for fans to get to see their players back on the ice?

There are plenty of tickets left for tomorrow’s game — where the Predators will try to beat the Lightning, in regulation — starting at just $20.

And to be clear, I’m rooting for y’all. Always, when you’re not facing Florida, but especially so against Tampa.

Want to go but don’t want to deal with downtown?

Shoutout to the Nashville Downtown Partnership for dropping this nugget of wisdom in the newsroom inbox:

Best Ever Event Parking, or BEEP, provides free parking for Preds game ticket holders at Nissan Stadium’s Lot D. There are shuttle buses that will take you from Nissan to Bridgestone in around eight minutes — or your legs for a walk over the pedestrian bridge.