It looks like the Nashville Predators “Keep the team in Nashville” campaign has had an effect on at least one person in St. Louis. Jeff Gordon, a reporter from St. Louis Today (the online site for the St. Louis Post- Dispatch) has penned a column about what the city needs to do to insure the Blues remain in St. Louis, even though currently there is no threat of the team leaving. Jeff says “The Blues are doing their job; we need to do ours.” Jeff’s column urges civic leaders, the business community and casual sports fans to “buy into it (the St. Louis Blues) too.”

Wow, could this be a new style of marketing campaign for professional sports teams? If other teams were to follow the lead of Nashville Predator fans, not only would they be making new friends and strengthening the roots of hockey in their community, they might also increase the sales at “hockey friendly” businesses. Recently on the Predators fan message board there was a topic titled “Who is supporting us? Let’s return the favor and support them.” The more the Predators fan base grows the more powerful it becomes. For Nashville businesses, it just might pay off in more ways than one to support the Predators Hockey Club.  

The gang at hockeyandhighheels.com are thrilled to hear current Nashville Predator’s owner Craig Leopold signed the letter of intent with the local Nashville group bucking up to buy the Predators. The group plunked down a ten million dollar deposit on the $193 million purchase price and will now wait for the league to review and hopefully approve the deal and the potential new owners. The ownership group includes local Nashville businessmen, David Freeman, Herb Fritch, among others, including one outsider; Californian businessman, William “Boots” Del Biaggio, who incidentally, attempted to buy the team on his own in July and who also happens to own a small piece of the San Jose Sharks. Geez, who wouldn’t want a guy named Boots joining the club?? Come on Board of Governors, when you meet to yak about this new deal for approval, just get’er done!!!!  

Save the Predators Update: Save the Predators Inc will make its first Predators tickets purchase and donating them to Big Brothers and Big Sisters. The estimated purchase will be $20,000.00 and it will take place on August 3rd 2007. That purchase will definitely make a dent in the 300 season ticket packages to be sold to keep pace with last year’s ticket sales. Save The Predators Inc is a non-profit group of concerned Nashville Predator hockey fans raising money to purchase season tickets for use by local charities. They are not affiliated with the Nashville Predators and are pretty much doing everything from the goodness of their collective hearts.  Visit www.savethepredators.com for more information. Go Predator Fans GO!
Keep on spreading the love in Nashville! 

I know of one place a “save the team” campaign will not work: Vancouver, Canada. The Vancouver Canucks have been on a roll and they will head into the 2007/08 season with 174 consecutive sell outs under their belt, and on deck; almost 4000 deposit paying fans waiting for the opportunity to purchase season tickets. With the season tickets capped a 17, 000, there are precious few tickets available for single game purchases. Vancouver is a city that can’t get enough Canuck! I know I can hardly wait for the season to begin again. Thankfully our wait time has decreased slightly as the team will be televising two pre season games in September; something they have only ever done twice before in 37 years. The first game will be on Saturday Sept. 22nd when the Canucks visit the Sharks for a little motion in the ocean, and the second occurs in Edmonton, when the Canucks take on the Oilers on Saturday Sept. 29th. The games will be featured on Canucks TV at Rogers Sportsnet Pacific. Until then…. Go Canucks Go!

Read Jeff Gordon’s article here!