The Case of the Missing Predators
  

And now the bad news.

There is chatter about that this season will be the last in Tennessee for the Predators. How big of a public relations black eye would it be if the reigning Stanley Cup champs scooted out of town just weeks after winning it all?

It could happen.

Presented for your review is Exhibit A:

The Sprint Center in Kansas City (www.sprintcenter.com)

Nice place, eh? A $265 million state of the art arena, the centerpiece of a downtown revival in Kansas City. While the city owns the team, driving force behind it is Anschutz Entertainment Group, those nice fellows who own the Los Angeles Kings and run Staples Center.

And there's Exhibit B:

The NHL, the Kings and AEG announced earlier in the week that the league will play its first ever games in Europe next season -- in London on September 29-30.

You can't really think that Anaheim GM Brian Burke was gung-ho about starting next season at a competitive disadvantage. There is talk that the Kings and Ducks would do an immediate east coast swing after the two game English series, but still.

The league will tell you that there is a legacy of hockey going back to Lord Stanley of Preston; that's Preston, England. Truth be told, there's more of a NHL legacy with English born players like Byron Dafoe and Steve Thomas, but I haven't seen any of the clubs here in Cali commissioning scouting trips to the UK. So why is the league really going across the Pond?
 

Although they're exciting and have big name stars on their roster, it seems that the Preds can't get the good people of Nashville out of their homes during the week to watch them. The mid-week crowds remind some of the small throngs the Devils draw during their residency in the Swamps of New Jersey.

While butts in the seats are always vital to an NHL franchise, there's even less corporate support in Nashville for the team, a killer for most franchises. When you think about it, other than the music business, which is direct competition to sports, what major corporations are headquartered in Nashville? (For those geographically challenged, don't say FedEx, they're in Memphis.)

So with marginal crowds and little corporate support, AEG has been romancing them for a while now. Phillip Anschutz didn't become a billionaire by not being an opportunist and although his right hand man Tim Leiweke (a former President of the Kings) is universally disliked by the media in Southern California, you can't question his ability as a dealmaker.

So Mr. Leiweke was very smart to put recently retired Luc Robitaille on a plane numerous times to woo Nashville management.

Now, Lucky Luc can offer them a state of the art building in a city with more corporate headquarters in a revitalized downtown setting.

But wait, there's more!

Two words: FREE RENT.

And since the Sprint Arena has a scheduled September opening, you do the math.

There's certainly a sense of urgency in the air. Could be a Cup banner raised in the Show Me State come the fall.

Despite all the executive office and arena drama, on the ice there's certainly no controversy. The way Predators turned it on against the out-of-contention Kings on Saturday, they have to be short money to get to the Finals, especially with the recently added Forsberg. Not only is he a virtuoso on ice, but is a calming and winning veteran presence in a locker room devoid of championship rings.

When asked if he was concerned about ruining the chemistry of an already outstanding team, he had no concerns.

"Coming in, you might think that other guy will be saying, 'is he going to take my ice time,' but coming in it's been an easy transition," Forsberg said. "After losing the first game, I think we've got 11 out of 12 points since.

"This year, I'm not the only player of my level coming into a new situation; you've got (Keith) Tkachuk and (Bill) Guerin too. I really like this team, their style of play is great, they're very mobile and they get the puck up the ice fast. The more I get to know how everybody plays, the better it's going to be for us. They were at the top of the league when I got here, so I'm not going to try to do too much. I really don't feel any pressure to produce."

As for his short stay in Philadelphia after signing a free agent deal, he really has no regrets nor was disappointed in the poor season the Flyers are experiencing. There was talk post-trade that he would consider returning to Philadelphia at the expiration of his current deal.

Peter concurred by admitting: "It was never my intention to leave Philadelphia. I had a lot of good friends and teammates over there even though we were going through a bad year and I was certainly part of that, too. They have a good organization, they're going to rebuild, so we'll see once my current deal ends. . . but I'm here now and I haven't given it any thought."

Paul Kariya has been to the top of the mountain, but just missed the summit with the Mighty Ducks. Now that Anaheim has become the just plain Ducks, Kariya left town and traveled to Colorado and Nashville, but still a Stanley Cup evades him. This team give him his best shot at a championship, but according to him it bares no resemblance to the squad he helped take to a Game 7 a few years ago.

"Peter's a huge piece of the puzzle. It's really going to help the team, he's one of the greatest players in the world and he's a great guy in the room," Kariya said. "I've never take him take a shift off, people don't realize how hard he works every game.

"A year ago, if I told you that Peter Forsberg would be available at the trade deadline, you wouldn't have believed me. With the Ducks, it was a totally different team. We were a seventh place team that played well down the stretch of the regular season and on into the playoffs. Remember, it was a time before all the rule changes; we were a team that played defensively and had great goaltending. Although the expectations are higher with this team, that's a good thing because you know every team is going to being their 'A' game to you every night. It's a great challenge."

LETTER FROM CHINA

Later today, I will embark on a life changing experience. I will be spending six days in Beijing, China.

Among the things I plan to do are a visit to the Forbidden City, the Ming Tombs, Tiananmen Square and the legendary Great Wall. I was told by an acquaintance that I should be prepared for a lot of photos to be taken of me during my visit to the Wall. Not because I'm a famous hockey writer (ha ha), but because many of residents of rural China that tour the Wall have never seen a white person before. An amazing thought when you think about it, and I'm concerned that I would possibly be the first representation of the Caucasian race to some Asians.

With this experience coming up, the question begs to be asked, is there hockey in China? After doing the obligatory Google search, I found a club team called the Dalian Ice Dragons. I dropped an email and initially got no response, so I thought the team had been disbanded. This week, Adrian Conradi, one of the members of the team dropped me a line, he wrote:

"I was away in the Philippines for Chinese New Year. As for the Dalian Ice Dragons, basically we are a group of Canadians who work together at a Canadian International School who have joined up with a small handful of Chinese guys in Dalian who play hockey. We don't really have an ice rink. There is a tiny rink in a mall in which we play three-on-three with 25 cm by 25 cm nets (no goalies) every Sunday night. We normally make about 3-5 road trips a year to various Northern Chinese cities to play on the big ice. This fall we went to Qiqihar and in December to Beijing where there is a pretty good hockey scene established now. Shortly after your visit we will go to Shenyang to play, otherwise we are all hockey fanatics; we normally play every Tuesday and Thursday at work and play roller hockey in a bus depot on Sunday afternoons. Let me know if you are dropping by Dalian (it's a really nice city by Chinese standards... relatively clean, green and it's got an attractive coastline). We will definitely be playing some sort of hockey."
 

Dennis Bernstein, the man behind SCORE! Media, is a columnist for TheFourthPeriod.com and the Los Angeles Correspondent for The Fourth Period Magazine.