That's right. AT Nashville Predators. ROAD TRIP!

The Atlanta Thrashers Fan Club planned this trip for us fans to descend upon Nashville for weeks. They chartered buses, got group seats, and coordinated almost 500 people on the trip. They did a great job! Unfortunately, the night before the trip, one crazy ice and snow storm came through and threatened our outing. But being the crazy puck heads we are, we went anyway!

The bus drivers chose to take the longer, but safer, route through Birmingham and then up to Nashville. The conditions were wet, but otherwise trouble free, until just past the Tennessee state line. The snow began there. Even still, it was smooth sailing until about 20 miles out of Nashville. The road conditions degraded dramatically. Cars were in the median where they had skidded off the road. There was a jack-knifed tractor trailer in the median. There was even an overturned truck! *gulp* But our drivers did a wonderful job and got us there without issue.

The roads were slushy and messy all through downtown Nashville. But the parking lot! It was a solid sheet of ice. I'm not talking a little crunchy. I'm talking like a solid inch of ice. We could have brought skates! It was insane! I was so worried for a life of my camera. We just had to take baby steps. There was some mad tail-gating going on in the parking lot, but we opted to shuffle our way toward the Sommet Center.

Once inside, warm ups began and our crowd was loud as heck. I know the players were excited that we'd all come, but I was kind of disappointed that they didn't really acknowledge us. No eye contact, no glass tap, no pucks tossed, nothin'. I mean, yeah, they were at work and all, but their job, after all, is to entertain us. But whatever.

Another thing that kind of let me down... They wouldn't allow any "artificial noise makers." Our group always comes armed with horns, cowbells, whistles, drums, you name it. Each time any sort of noise was made, the ushers came down on us and put an end to it. No. Fun. At. All. Yet, and get this, the Nashville crowd was allowed to use their "Too Too Train" whistles as much as they wanted to. What goobers.

Anyway, after the game, we reboarded the buses and headed home. It took us even longer to get home, for some reason. We tried sleeping on the bus, but there was this woman right behind us that would not stop talking. I finally had to put my ipod on and crank up the volume to just tune her out. But we finally pulled up at Philips Arena at about 5:45 AM. We made good time and got home around 6:30 AM. Wow, what a long day! It was a darn good time, though. So, let's get into this, shall we?

A different program cover than you're used to seeing here.		We met at Philips Arena around 11:30 AM.		A look at our buses.		Kalia and Jana posed for a pic on the bus.		Travis and I were excited to go!
Yep, that's snow.		There was also a good coating of ice on the trees and power lines.		Icicles coming down from the rock face.		And here we are. Welcome to Smashville.		One of the few cool things about the Predators. Their players come out through the sabre tooth cat mouth.
The fan club was armed with plenty of signage. Welcome to Thrashville!		More of the signs. I've seen this "Rich" one before and thought it was funny.		More signage.		Sally brought an inflatable Moose head!		Here come our boys!
The players file out of the locker room.		Pavelec skates out.		Several players charge the net.		It looks like he's maybe checking out some of the signs.		Antro takes it to the net.
Salmela passes to a buddy.		Valabik waits for his turn.		Moose made some saves.		You can see where Pavelec dropped the puck from his glove.		Max seems nervous.
Z-Bo sported a bit of a mohawk.		Kovy skates it in.		Slater.		Boulton.		Hainsey.
Enstrom.		Kane.		Kubina checks out some of the fans.		Bogo is amused with something.		Probably the best pic I've taken of Hainsey so far.
Pavelec's new pads still haven't seen much action.		Valabik looks lost.		Bad posture?		Now he's like, "You told me shoot, so I shoot. What's the problem?"		Crazy fans scare Boris.
Antropov.		Kovalchuk watches the action.		One of the fans dropped their pom-pom over the glass. Army kindly returned it.		Then he talked about her.		Salmela.
Antropov.		Peverley looks to be reading the signs also.		Pavs says, "Here, you can have this."		Aw! Look at him smile!		:)
Bogosian is usually the last to leave the ice.		This picture of us was posted on the Thrashers website. We rocked that side of the rink!		We missed the intro since we were stuck at the concession stand. Gnash came out to harrass the fans.		Here's a look at the benches. Our seats had the netting in front. Bad pictures coming right up!		Moose making some stops.
Moose gets a surprise guest in his house.		Pekka Rinne.		End of the first period. I will give the Preds this - their scoreboard is much cooler than ours. And they have hot water in the bathrooms. Other than that, we rock their socks.		They have local bands play during their intermissions.		Moose's second period wash down.
Just after skidding to a stop, he's like, "Man! This is HARD!"		This is the reason our goal was disallowed. This! They whistled the play dead while Kaner was on a break away and scored. Complete bull!		The ref is like, "I don't know, blame this guy." Whatever dude, you suck.		Gnash didn't appreciate the amount of hell we were raising.		But I had to laugh. Thrash has nice, professionally done signs. Gnash has cardboard and a marker.
Some goal celebration. Whoo hoo!		Part of our crowd, off to my right.		End of second period. It should be 4 to 3 in favor of the Thrashers. Freakin', frackin', UGH!		Kerry took a picture in our general direction during intermission.		A closer shot of me and Virginia. LOL at Jana on the left!
The boys take the ice for the third period.		Is it just me, or is their bench tiny?		Stretch it out, Pekka.		OK, so, it really looks like Max is trying to pull a Hainsey and stick it in our net in this pic.		Arnott and Valabik collided hard.
Their respective trainers came out to help. They were both able to continue.		Stretchy, stretchy.		Gnash went sledding down the stairs during a commercial break.		And there's the final. The Preds scored only 7 seconds into the third and we were never able to answer. Woe is me.		How do we best end this game? Well, a fight, of course! We had to get our energy out for the long ride home.