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Behind The Scenes 2019
In THN’s Behind The Scenes Issue, we pull back the curtain for an inside look at the world of hockey. First off, Ken Campbell takes you along an NHL road trip with the Winnipeg Jets, while prospect expert Ryan Kennedy survives the white-knuckle ride of an NHL scout. And then, it’s the story of the creation of Gritty straight from the mouths of those who brought him to life. All this, plus features on Jon Cooper, George Parros, Jeff Petry, Teuvo Teravainen, David Rittich, and many more.
MONEY GOES TO HIS HEAD
TEUVO TERAVAINEN IS THE ultimate pass-first player, the kind of reflexive playmaker who would give serious consideration to a drop pass in the midst of an unobstructed breakaway. So in the wake of signing a big new contract with Carolina, would Teravainen alter his game to…shoot more? “Maybe,” Teravainen said, with more than a hint of coyness. “You get some confidence. You know the team believes in you, it gives of course confidence, and I feel like I really belong here.” He’s certainly scoring more. In the nine games after signing a five-year extension worth $5.4 million per season in late January, Teravainen scored seven of his 17 goals. And he is indeed shooting more: 2.6 shots per game, up from about two shots per game before the extension. Hey, it’s a…
MEET A MASCOT
THE PREDATORS ARE AS committed to Gnash as he is to them. On their website, a detailed origin story claims he was found as a frozen baby saber-toothed tiger, preserved from the Ice Age, when construction workers dug the foundation of Bridgestone Arena in 1994. The lore echoes the real-life story of a partial saber-toothed tiger skeleton that was found in a Nashville construction site in 1971, inspiring the team’s nickname and logo. The Gnash version is a fittingly hardcore tale for arguably the NHL’s most daring mascot. Gnash handles all the standard cute, cuddly duties of a mascot, sure, making more than 600 community appearances per year. But the beast lives dangerously game to game. He rappels to the ice from the rafters of Bridgestone Arena, swings from the scoreboard to…
GRITTY: AN ORAL HISTORY
GRITTY IS UNQUESTIONABLY the most popular mascot in the NHL, if not all of professional sports. While most have fewer than 10,000 Twitter followers to show for their years of existence, Gritty gathered more than 225,000 by mid-February – more than four times that of Nashville’s Gnash, who’s second. When the Philadelphia Flyers initially revealed Gritty back in September 2018, there were a multitude of reactions: shock, confusion, fear, laughter, even anger. And while some fans still harbor those feelings, the majority turned it around in just a few hours, with Gritty becoming an international hockey heartthrob by the end of his first day. A few weeks later, even the Philadelphia city council adopted a resolution proclaiming Gritty as their own, while still referring to him as “a ghastly empty-eyed Muppet with…
THESE JERKS ARE INTREPID
THE CAROLINA HURRICANES REALLY are a Bunch of Jerks, not because of their post-game celebrations, but because I looked on the Interweb and discovered I’d have to part with 42 Canadian dollars in order to get one of their T-shirts. Unless the darn thing is being hand-delivered on a bed of roses by a group of unicorns, that’s a little rich for my blood. As for their campy post-win team celebrations at PNC Arena, which have been dubbed ‘the Storm Surge,’ they’re not exactly my cup of tea. In fact, I’m a little surprised they’ve lasted this long. They’re kind of hokey and forced and in reality, they haven’t really spiked home attendance all that much. Through mid-February, the Hurricanes were 600 fans per game ahead of the pace they established…
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