The Nashville Predators had a ceremony to raise their Western Conference championship banner at their home opener last night.
That is so amateur hour.
The Predators rallied from 5-3 down to beat Philadelphia, and that’s fine by me. Have you ever seen the Flyers win the Cup?
But you don’t need to raise your conference championship banner in front of your home crowd. That’s for a Stanley Cup banner, and nothing else. You don’t make a celebration out of being runner-up. Any hysteria is misplaced and manufactured.
When the Penguins lost in the Stanley Cup Final in 2008, that year’s Eastern Conference championship banner just kind of appeared in the rafters, and we barely talked about it.
Re: the Stanley Cup Final, the Predators were first-timers last spring. Let’s see if they’re next-timers. And let’s see if Nashville is such a great hockey town if they aren’t.