The Nashville Predators have always been the Nashville Predators. The Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg and became the Jets.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about ESPN trying to talk hockey.
It’s cliche at this point to dump on the Worldwide Leader for its hockey ignorance; the people in charge just don’t care about the sport and proved that in a recent round of layoffs. We can point and laugh at them all we want, but they know hockey’s popularity among their audience isn’t high enough for them to lose overall credibility when things like this happen.
But that doesn’t mean when they make on-air hockey gaffes it’s still not incredibly awkward and cringe-worthy, which is exactly what happened Monday on ESPN’s “SportsNation” as the conversation turned to a Predators fan who missed out on Stanley Cup Final tickets. LZ Granderson, with all the confidence in the world, started talking about how he used to follow the Predators when they were the Thrashers in Atlanta.
As we’ve already stated, that never was the case.
At the very least, he sold the hell out of it. He made it seem like he was right. Even better was the fact that no one on set corrected him.
Granderson, likely with help from someone with basic knowledge of the NHL and its clubs past and present, eventually admitted to his mistake.
Of course, this is all part of a vicious cycle, too. Someone says something dumb about hockey — either intentionally or not — the hockey community rushes to defend its sport, and then the original offender is even more turned off by hockey than when the whole thing started.
Thumbnail photo via Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY Sports Images
