Toronto hockey journalist James Mirtle weighed in earlier today on The Tennessean’s story about Taco Bell’s Preds promotion:

I’d be planning to head to Nashville for a game this season, but with my passport in transit, that’s not going to happen until next year. I imagine NHL hockey in Tennessee is [a] blast. This story focuses on some of the positive business developments with the franchise since new ownership took over, including the fact there have been a few sellouts and the Taco Bell nights are back.

It’s certainly going to be an uphill climb for David Freeman and company, and this might be the Preds last chance in Nashville, but it’s good to see someone putting in the hard work to try and make the team work.
I appreciated this balanced take on the situation here in Nashville and thought it was worth passing along. Thanks, James.

This is absolutely the right message coming from David Freeman and the other members of the Preds’ new ownership group:

“There’s definitely work to be done, but the doors are open,” Freeman said. “In (10 weeks), we’re thrilled. The reception has been very good. We’re very appreciative that people care about Nashville and what we’re trying to do. We have a great ability to walk in with businesses and say, ‘Is there something that makes sense for both of us here?’ …

All during the summer we had heard whispers — that were more like shouts in our ear — about a suggested change in approach,” Freeman said. “We certainly not only listened to those whispers but agreed with them. The basic mindset or approach we’re taking is it’s not their responsibility to buy something. It’s our responsibility to give them a great product that they want to buy. There’s no sense of entitlement.” …

“The easy part of selling for us is that we feel like we’ve got a great product. The entertainment value down here is fabulous. We’re not a charity case. We bring value to our sponsors, to our advertisers, to the people who use us with their human resources department.”

Thank you, David, for all you and your group have done during the past nine months to save this franchise. Thanks also to the fans and the companies who choose to support the Preds, including Taco Bell, AmSurg, HCA and Community Health Systems.

I never had behind-the-scenes experience with the former ownership group, and I have plenty of thanks for Craig Leipold and all he did to bring hockey to Nashville. That said, it’s interesting to me to hear this complaint emerge about a sense of entitlement from the Preds business side.

It’s long been a criticism of the Titans that the franchise has operated with a similar sense of entitlement, a sense of “you need us more than we need you,” but here’s the unfortunate difference in these scenarios: An NFL team, especially in a football-crazed community, can afford to think like that, but an NHL team, outside of Ontario and Quebec, cannot.

While the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce is set to host a “Cool School” next month to teach businesses how to attract young employees, there’s an interesting conversation taking place on a Wake Forest fan forum at Scout.com about the following question: Would you move to Atlanta, Charlotte or Nashville? There were pros and cons for each city, and it was mentioned at least once that our downtown could be more of a “hotspot,” but here’s a representative quote:

[The] main problem with atlanta is traffic, and it is MUCH worse than in Charlotte or Nashville. Charlotte and Nashville are very much alike - mid-sized cities, lots of young people, most important city in the state, and a large redneck-focused industry in town (NASCAR and music). Charlotte has the banks, which is nice - lots of good jobs there, and it’s very stable. But Nashville has better “out of town guest” appeal.

Nashville is easily holding its own in the discussion. It wasn’t that long ago, say 10 to 15 years, that Nashville would have been a distant third in this inquiry. I don’t see any need to cancel the Cool School, but at least we know we’re doing something right.