Bye bye Balsilly...

A few short weeks ago, it was looking like the Nashville Predators were goners.
Jim Balsillie, Captain Canada, and his sneering attorney, Richard Rodier, were crouching over the team, apparently putting all the pieces in place to move the team to Hamilton or Waterloo Ontario.
They were even selling season tickets for the "Hamilton Predators" up there...
Meanwhile, Rodier was telling us, via local sports talk radio "to chill."

Well, thankfully, Nashville didn't chill. A number of local businessmen and media luminaries got together and started rallying the city to sell season tickets and whip up support for the team. Since the lock-out, paradoxically, while the team's prospects have been consistently improving-- the new CBA that came out of the lock-out has really, I think, been a great benefit to smaller market teams like the Preds-- the 'lost' season a few years ago really set back ticket sales... and we've never quite recovered.

Now, I could be called something of a hippocrite here. I'm not a season ticket-holder.. and in fact, it's been a few years at least since I last attended a match. But it just does my heart good to see the city rise up and take hold of this hockey franchise and really get behind it.

And now, the dream scenario-- local ownership-- what seemed like such a long-shot a few weeks ago has turned the corner and appears to have a real chance at success, with news today of a binding letter of intent.

Forgive me if I revel a little as we watch the Canadian media tuck its tail a bit and wander back home.