Barry Trotz Back With the Preds

THE TRAIN DADDY IS BACK with sports news, life lessons and politically incorrect talk. All aboard! So, the NFL season is officially over. Don’t worry, though. If you are like me, and sports in general keep you entertained enough to deal with this crazy thing we call life, then hakuna matata—in Swahili, it means no worries.

I have always preferred college basketball to the NBA, and as we enter March the entire country goes mad! Tennessee basketball is just good enough and inconsistent enough to make things very interest- ing. The team is defensively sound, yet there are days when putting the ball in the basket seems a tough ask. We have the start of the Major League Soccer season, and guess what? The hometown dudes in Nashville got a very cool season-opening victory. And not only that, they officially scored the very first goal of the entire 2023 MLS season. What makes it even more badass is the fact they did it all in black. No, this wasn’t a shout-out to Black History Month or that crooked BLM organization that took the money and ran. (Honest question: Is it blind loyalty to BLM at this point or just plain stupid? I mean, some folk still support BLM after the so-called leaders took the money and ran!) But nonsense aside, the black uniforms were for something way cooler, Johnny Cash!

Baseball is back! You can hate the game, you can believe it’s dull or slow, but I have never met a person who doesn’t love going to the ballpark for a live game.

If you thought you had seen everything in baseball, think again. With bases loaded, two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth, a spring Braves vs. Red Sox game ends in a 6–6 tie after a pitch-clock violation. Everyone was so confused at the end of this one. According to new MLB rules, a batter must be in the batter’s box prepared to take a pitch with eight seconds remaining on the new pitch clock. Cal Conley was not prepared, the umpire assessed him a third strike, and since the game was a spring training game and not in the regular season, it did not go into extra innings and officially ended in a tie.

It’s 2023 and the new rules are designed to improve the pace of play. Hopefully MLB can look over it all and fix it, because no game should ever be allowed to end on a pitch-clock violation. We really don’t need clock confusion added to the game. That said, I am an advocate for speeding up the game while most baseball purists aren’t, so I at least applaud the Major League for trying.

College baseball is back as well, and if you are a fan of Tennessee baseball then you know it’s been a wild ride these last few seasons with Tony V. and the boys in orange. These boys have won many games and they do it in a fashion that isn’t always popular. This Vols team has been one of the top programs in the country and yet they are allowed to act like schoolyard hooligans. I love it and hate it in equal measure.

Last year, after a historic season amounting to 57 total wins and the SEC championship, the Vols were the most talked about team in the country. They were dominant, passionate and loud, from bat flips to flipping off opponents to their coach mildly chest-bumping umpires. The rest of the country hated it while most Tennessee faithful fell in love with the team. The problem for me is, when you act out like that you better win! Tennessee pooped away a home super regional last season vs. Notre Dame as the one seed. The haters had a field day piling it on a disappointed Tennessee fan base. That’s the past and the 2023 season just got underway. The Vols began its season rough with losses at Arizona and then a loss to (how in the hell?) the Grand Canyon Antelopes. Maybe it humbled these boys. Since those two losses the Vols have won six in a row.

Coach Tony V. in short work has created a program where the expectations are to be one of the last teams standing.

I have been an Atlanta Braves fan since before I was playing T-ball at SportsCom in the early ’90s. I very much enjoyed watching Atlanta win a World Series recently but there is something about the atmosphere of college baseball over the big leagues that has piqued my interest of late.

Someone asked me if the state of Tennessee finally got an MLB team would I stop being a Braves fan? It tears at my heart, but it’s an easy answer for me, I would immediately support that local Tennessee team and the Braves would be part of my past. Tennessee is home and will always be my home. Absolutely: If Tennessee gets an MLB team ever, I will be in that group of fans ready to start fresh and create a new tradition.

Let’s shout out some hockey. Big news regarding the Nashville Predators. My homie Barry Trotz is back! It was just announced that GM David Poile is retiring after 26 years. That many years made David the winningest GM in NHL history and the Predators’ only GM to date. While Poile never brought a Stanley Cup to Smashville, he found much success. The Predators have made the playoffs 15 of the past 18 years and he came oh-so-close when the Predators had a magical run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2017.

Old-school Predators fans are happy, though, that Barry is back in the building. The winningest coach in Predator history, it just feels right that he will now take over as team GM. Barry coached Nashville from 1998–2014 and racked up over 500 wins in that time. After leaving Nashville, Barry Trotz won a Jack Adams award as the NHL top coach in 2015, and then he won the BIG one—a Stanley Cup—as head coach with Washington in 2018.

The Predators currently sit eight points behind for that final wild-card spot in the Western Conference, so it might soon be a rebuilding time in Nashville.

Sources say the Predators are very much open for business regarding a sell-off prior to the trade deadline, with only three players being untouchable: Captain Roman Josi, Juuse Saros and Filip Forsberg, all fan favorites. After that the Predators might be looking to get value for the future, and what better man than Barry Trotz to lead it and bring a Stanley Cup championship to the city of Smashville.

Let’s end this article with a little football talk. I don’t have much to say about the Titans right now, and any knowledgeable Titans fan knows it may be tough sledding for a bit. Titans have a new GM and will be looking to get some younger talent. Call it a rebuild? The Titans just said goodbye to Lewan, Woods, Cunningham and Fat Randy. Predictable and smart moves, but don’t get it twisted, Titan nation, some tough decisions are still to be decided with the salary cap and NFL Draft still upcoming. We will talk more about this team in the next issue as the draft nears. I will end on this, though—it is crucial that this team locks up Big Jeff Simmons to a long-term deal. It won’t come cheap, but don’t lose Big Jeff like we did A.J. Brown. Big Jeff is that single player that you can build a defense around, and he is young!