Randy Smith
"Well sir.....I came upon this great big round building and it had a neon sign on it that said, Hockey here tonight. So I said to myself, by grannys I'm gonna get in on this."
-Archie Campbell, 1965
The above quote from country comedian Archie Campbell came from his RCA record in 1965 entitled, "Hockey Here Tonight." If you've never heard it, it's like Andy Griffith's classic, "What it was, was football." All along Archie was referring to the old Southern term which means anything but the game of hockey, and I'll just leave that right there.
In the early to mid 1960s, the Nashville Dixie Flyers were the Music City's professional hockey team.
The Dixie Flyers were a minor league team, playing in the eastern Hockey League. They were in Nashville from 1962 until they folded in 1971 and there was some chatter about getting an NHL franchise in Nashville long before the Predators came along in 1998. In 2017 Nashville is awaiting the winner of the Eastern Conference series between Ottawa and Pittsburgh to play for the Stanley Cup. The Preds beat Anaheim four games to two to advance to their first ever Stanley Cup Finals and they've turned their fans upside down with excitement.
As no surprise to anyone, Chattanooga supports the Predators very well, as several people I know have season tickets and they're absolutely eaten up with the hockey bug. (Apologies to Archie Campbell) Professional hockey seems to be the last sport that would catch on this way in Tennessee but it's been popular for years. Now, however, the overall excitement is at a fever pitch, and, if Nashville manages to win a Stanley Cup Trophy, the first major pro championship of any kind in Tennessee will set unprecedented levels of excitement.
I've been to one Predators game in my life. One. I've watched them on television a lot but the Bridgestone Arena has been graced by my appearance only once. I was a huge fan of the Dixie Flyers when I was in high school and my favorite player was a guy named Flo Pillot. A French-Canadian, he was tough as nails and had very few teeth in the front of his mouth. The Dixie Flyers were famous for their sometimes violent hockey fights; scuffles that would carry over into the stands from time to time. I once called a Dixie Flyers game, "wrestling on ice." because of the unbelievable encounters that resembled a WWE event more than it did professional hockey. In some games, there would be pools of blood on the ice while play was going on. Ken "Red" Murphy was another scrappy player I remember well from those days. Like most everyone else I went to see the fights as much or more than I went to see the games, but it made for a very entertaining evening.
I am pulling for the Predators to win it all, not only for them but for the old Dixie Flyers and their fans from the 1960s. We were old school hockey fans who could care less about the skating skills and all the other skills it takes to play professional hockey. We were simply interested in who was the best fighter or who was the toughest player on the ice. Heck I may even have to get a Predators jersey. What I would really love to get is the old purple and gold Dixie Flyers jersey; with Flo Pilot's name on the back.
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Randy Smith has been covering sports on radio, television and print for the past 45 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has written two books, and has continued to free-lance as a play-by-play announcer. His career has included a 17-year stretch as host of the Kickoff Call In Show on the University of Tennessee’s prestigious Vol Network. He has been a member of the Vol Network staff for 30 years. He has done play-by-play on ESPN, ESPN II, CSS, and Fox SportSouth, totaling more than 500 games, and served as a well-known sports anchor on Chattanooga television for more than a quarter-century. In 2003, he became the first television broadcaster to be inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame. Randy and his wife Shelia reside in Hixson. They have two married children, Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith. They have five grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, Mattingly, DellaMae, and CoraLee.