It’s no secret I’m a huge Nashville Predators fan. I went to my first game back in 2001 or something like that, and I’ve supported the team ever since. I signed the petitions through the years to keep the team in Music City, and after moving back to town several years ago, became a season ticket holder. While I’ve been a peripheral fan for years, being a season ticket holder changed the game for me. (No pun intended there.)
The last two seasons of playoff hockey have been such fun! We’ve celebrated in the streets and across the whole city. Yellow banners supporting the team have hung from the most unorthodox places, and it’s been so wonderful to see the city rally around a single team. That’s the thing about Nashville, most residents are Preds fans. David Poile and Barry Trotz built a fan base here when there was none. Unlike football there wasn’t a hockey fan base when the Preds franchise started.
I’ll admit to shedding a tear or two when the team lost Game 7 last week. Sure, I wanted bragging rights and I wanted my team to hoist the Cup in a huge parade downtown. (And yes, my bucket list includes drinking out of it someday.) My consolation was knowing the Blackhawks and the Penguins weren’t going to be hoisting it this year either. But more than the win for the team, I’m sad because our city lost.
Nashville is a Southern town, and we’re a friendly bunch. Even still, it’s 2018 and people seem more rushed, more entitled and more divisive than ever before. The Stanley Cup changed that for a few brief weeks. Banners hung across the city. Everyone wore gold and navy. “Go Preds” stickers dotted rear windows and bumpers across the county, and chants broke out on more than one occasion when a group of fans randomly convened in the same spot. Everyone was happy. Not since the flood have I seen this town truly rally around a single purpose, and this time, it was a really fun one. That’s what makes me sad. For these brief few weeks, we were united in a way that only happens once a year (twice if the Titans have a stellar season.) One of my favorite quotes sums it up perfectly…
“Sports have the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sports can create hope, where there was once only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination. Sports is the game of lovers.” -Nelson Mandela
If you’ve been in Nashville the past two seasons, you understand the truth in those words. And that’s what left me sad.
And then there’s my hope for Pekka and Fish. Two favorites across the city, and two of my favorites players across the league. I’m only a few months from turning 36, and I’m not especially thrilled about the prospect of aging. My body is very different from when I was 21, both outwardly and inwardly. To my younger self, 36 was old. I was supposed to have claimed a Pulitzer by now, be married, have children and a nanny. Life was supposed to look very different by the time I hit my late 30s, yet here I am. None of my big dreams have happened, and while I’m happy in my life, there will always be a small part that’s sad for the loss of my dreams. I’ve grieved those seasons in the midst of celebrating where my life has journeyed.
That’s why I am empathetic for Pekka and Fish. Both in their late 30s, I’m sure they are feeling some of the same thoughts I have felt. My body doesn’t recover as quickly as it once did. There’s still a Cup at the end of their dreams, and at least for Fish, it will remain elusive. I don’t know what will happen in the off-season for Pekka.
I cannot relate to the life of a professional hockey player. My short season of bike racing and subsequent crashes will not compare. My life as an endurance athlete is very much the opposite. I pay lots of money to fit sports into a busy life, while they are paid lots of money to make sports their entire life. But here’s what I can relate to: I can relate to frustration over wanting my body to work in a way it doesn’t anymore. I can relate to wanting time to stop, to wanting a fountain of youth to spring up in my back yard. I can relate to people giving up on you and counting you out because of your age. I can relate to the clicking tock of youth disappearing and the feeling of helplessness that comes along with every passing year. I can relate to the slow realization of seeing dreams disappear that will never be achieved… certainly not because I didn’t try hard enough, but because it just wasn’t meant to be.
When you wake up one day and realize your dreams and your goals might not happen, it’s a sobering realization. It’s one that brings a host of emotions. Sometimes, you even struggle to find your purpose again. I don’t know Fish or Pekka. I don’t know how their brain works or what they’re feeling in this season. I cannot imagine my life being on display for everyone to offer an opinion.
But I will always be a fan. I will be a fan of them as people, as men and as hockey players. Whatever comes next for them, they’ll have my support. And I truly hope they’ll both continue to call Nashville home. My bigger hope is for them to find purpose in what comes next, for them to pray and to seek God in their futures and to know where one dream ends, another can begin.
Nashville is better because of these two guys.