Storm Debris: The Lower Broadway Block Party Edition

It’s Monday and you probably don’t want to be at work. Good news: neither do we, so we put some links together for your reading pleasure. They beat the pants off reading TPS reports, so feel free to use them to fake your way into some productivity today.

Ain’t No Party like a Smashville Party

There’s been no shortage of Nashville-as-hockeytown thinkpieces over the past couple of weeks, and with the largest collection of hockey media in one place all season in town, we could probably fill an entire column with nothing but articles about the scenes inside and outside Bridgestone Arena.

• This is a bit old (from the end of the Western Conference Final), but still relevant: Greg Wyshynski goes back into the archives to point out how pompously ridiculous the pabulum from certain Canadian writers was back in the dark days of Jim Balsillie and Boots Del Biaggio. [Puck Daddy]
• And a response to that column from Dirk Hoag, better known as the now-blogging-retired Forechecker who was the founder (and namesake) of On The Forecheck, in the form of a Tweetstorm. [@Forechecker]
• NHL.com’s Nick Cotsonika spent most of Saturday outside Bridgestone, even during the game, and here’s what he saw. [NHL.com]
• Sean Gentille of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “What makes all this great is that hockey fans here don’t feel the need to copy fans in Pittsburgh, just like fans in Pittsburgh shouldn’t feel the need to copy fans in Canada. The hockey fandom tent can always get larger, and Saturday was a circus.” [Post-Gazette]
• Back to Wyshynski, who does a deep dive on how the 17,000+ inside Bridgestone pushed the Predators to their Game 3 win. [Puck Daddy]
• Adam Vingan is the Preds’ beat writer, in his second season covering the team for the Tennessean. He talked to Jason Brough about what he’s seen in his two years in town. [Pro Hockey Talk]
• Jordan Ritter Conn is a Nashville native who moved away and then back. This is all uncharted territory for him, as it is for many longtime residents and fans in Music City. [The Ringer]

Lord Stanley’s Newswire

• Pete Weber has been calling NHL games for almost 40 years. He’d never called a Stanley Cup Final game until last Monday, and as the original voice of the Preds going all the way back to 1998, Game 3 was extra special. [NHL.com]
• And speaking of originals, Brent Peterson was a Preds assistant coach in 1998. Now a broadcaster himself, he was overcome with emotion when the Preds won the Western Conference Final. [Globe and Mail]
• Peter Laviolette and Jim Rutherford won a Stanley Cup together. You may know something about this. What you may not know is that Rutherford would have hired Laviolette again, this time to coach the Penguins, if not for the fact that the Preds had pounced on Laviolette a month before Rutherford took the Pens job. [Toronto Sun]
• Laviolette has an eleven-year-old dog he got when he lived in Raleigh. You’ll Never Guess What He’s Named! [On The Forecheck]
• Two months ago, Ron Hainsey had never made an appearance in the playoffs in his 14-year NHL career. You’d better believe he’s relishing this run. [NHL.com]
• Speaking of Hainsey, The Hockey News rated his trade to Pittsburgh the best deadline deal of the season. [The Hockey News]

Meanwhile, Eight Hours Down I-40 East

• The fellows at the Calm Before The Storm blog have started a podcast series. Pat Clarke joined them to talk Canes prospects on their latest Warning Flag podcast [CBTS].
• Cory Stillman, the Hurricanes’ erstwhile director of forward development, has left the organization to take the reins of the OHL’s Sudbury Wolves. Stillman had been mysteriously absent around PNC over the past few months, even no-showing the Cup reunion in 2016, so it’s fair to wonder if this had been in the works for some time. [Wolves]
• Down Goes Brown takes two looks back through Stanley Cup history and the Canes make a few appearances. First, when Game 2 became the turning point [The Hockey News]. Then, 13 Cinderella stories, and the Canes factor in twice, once on each side of the story [Sportsnet].
• The Canes are heading back to Traverse City September 8-12, trying to defend their 2016 title at the annual prospect tournament. [Red Wings]
• Scott Darling and Michelle McMahon join the Cheaters Never Win podcast [Section 328]. (Spoiler, the podcast mentions that a familiar name will be joining the Section 328 podcast broadcast from the NHL Draft in Chicago, tune in for more information about Canes Country coverage at the draft).
• Lucas Wallmark was the breakout star of the Checkers’ 2016-17 campaign, and it was a Christmas conversation with Ulf Samuelsson that propelled his rise throughout the final months of the season. [Checkers]
• That article is part of a season-in-review series on the Checkers; among those who saw time in Raleigh last season, here are [Michael Leighton] and [Sergey Tolchinsky].
• And knocking on the door, [Trevor Carrick] [Roland McKeown], [Aleksi Saarela and Janne Kuokkanen].
• Kevin Weekes has been in Scott Darling’s shoes, supplanting a longtime goaltender as the new number-one in town, and he has some advice for the newest Hurricane. [NSJ]
• The Canes were well-represented at the Memorial Cup, even if none of their prospects took home the title. [Hurricanes]
• Scott Cullen gives his offseason game plan for the Canes, with a player-by-player look at the squad plus who they could target in free agency. [TSN]

And Finally...

Few things in this world can hold a candle to the cholesterol-busting adventure that is a Primanti’s sandwich, what with fries being part of the sandwich itself. What in the world could compare? Why, Doc Emrick giving play-by-play of his sandwich being built, of course. [@NHLonNBCSports]