Woo Hoo Free Frosties! Nashville Predators vs Atlanta Thrashers

Preseason games can be less than exciting. Many are sparsely attended. Oh no, not me. Not only do I go to preseason home games, me and some friends drove 5 hours to go see our team get their asses kicked 5-0 in Nashville. I'm just insane like that! Nashville has a deal worked out with Wendy's that if the Predators score 5 goals, you can turn in your ticket stub for a free Frostie. You are welcome, Nashville!




First of all, 5-0 seems harsh, but you have to look beyond the score. It was Preds Fest and all of the tickets were free. Also, they unveiled their third jerseys (thank God they were much better than the mustard monstrousity from a few seasons ago). So you have an arena full of fans and newcomers who wanted to see super stars. Roll out the lines! For the Nashville Predators we have:
Jason Arnott
JP Dumont
Shea Weber(he's a fucking all star)
Ryan Suter
Wade Belak
and goalie Dan Ellis


For your Atlanta Thrashers, our top line super stars were Eric Boulton, Chris Thorburn (both part of the 4th line), Nathan Oystrick and Boris Valabik. It was basically the regular season Predators vs various Wolviators (Gladiators/Wolves) fighting over a positionon our third line.


Woo Hoo, drop the puck!




One of our alternate captains for the game, Eric Boulton.





I'm pulling for Popovic. Coach Anderson seems to want to give him every shot. I wasn't terribly impressed with him in this game, but what do I know. Come on Pops! I don't want to say
Do svidaniya to you.





Boris has a bobo (Bobo has a bobo hehehe) over his eye. It kind of looks like my fake injury on my Halloween costume from last year. Boris can look SOOO mean when he wants to.





Get used to that feeling, Drew.





The guys lined up and waiting to shoot on the goalie.





The adorable Tim Stapleton looking at me like I'm a lunatic. Come on, you played for Toronto, you should be used to rabid fans.





And another picture of Tim because it was adorable.





Anssi Salmela. He played pretty well in the game.





Swarming the goalie





Another of our alternate captains for the game, Nathan Oystrick.





Wow! You mean Nashville had superstars they actually didn't put out in the game?? Joel Ward, Martin Erat and David Legwand modeled the Predators new third jerseys. I guess I should have been glad they didn't put Jordan TooToo in the game.





Preds take the ice. I'm a huge Predators fan and this trip taught me I hate coming up when I can't cheer for them. I love this pictures because I usually can't get a good one due to the lighting, but this one is okay.





Dan Ellis. I am pulling for you this season. It will be tough getting your job back from Pekka Rinne.





Opening face off.





Photographic proof we actually did take some action to the Nashville goal.





Dan taking a break.





Face off.





Drew MacIntyre played well, but got hung out to dry some. The shots on goal were 22 for the Thrashers and 36 for the Predators. Drew might have looked a little better with a better team in front of him.





Drew: WTF is wrong with you guys??!?!
Vernace: Dude, that's Jason Arnott! That's Shea Weber!!
Drew: Hell could you at least try and keep the puck out of our zone SOMETIMES?? How about taking a shot??
Vernace: You can have my free Frosty.
Drew:





Our fourth alternate captain for the game, Chris Thorburn waiting for the face off.





Stapleton in the face off. He was usually out on the ice with Sterling and Krog. We were calling them the Midgee line. I'm sure they would love that. It was purely an affectionate term.





Fritsche seeing some face off action.





Dan Ellis was having such an easy time, they decided to give Mark Dekanich in the game. Welcome to the game, Mark! Don't worry, you will only see 9 shots.





Someone wake Dekanich up, we are actually in the opposing zone!





Oh Boris, how I love you! I love the fact he doesn't give a shit about who a super star is. If he's pissed, he goes after them. Look at that those daggers he is shooting Jason Arnott. He must have been shooting off his mouth, too because he got a 10 minute game misconduct.





Not to be outdone, Arturs Kulda redeemed himself from those penalties nicely by kicking a larger Cody Franson's ass.





Boulton: Nice job boys!
Boris: We are getting our ass kicked.
Boulton: But you two are kicking real ass!
Kulda: True.
Boulton: Boris, that was Jason-fucking-Arnott!
Boris: So.
Boulton: Arty that dude was bigger than you.
Kulda: So.
Boulton: like I said boys, nice job!





One of my favorite pics of the night, I managed to get a shot of the only time a Thrasher put the puck into the net, during the shoot out. I love that they have shoot outs just for fun in preseason.


Not a great outcome, but Nashville is always fun. The fans are for the most part completely awesome even to opposing fans. We shall meet again and this time we are bringing Kovalchuk, Kubina, Antropov, Kozlov and Little with us!