fans are coming through

According to an article in the Tennessean today:
      This years season ticket holder renewal rate so far: 66.5%
      Last years season ticket holder renewal rate at this point: 66%

And in regard to Balsillie's silence to this point, the article quotes commissioner Gary Bettman as saying "In that regard, what (Balsillie) says or doesn't say and when he says it isn't as important as what the people in Nashville do.''

The fans are stepping up. At least as much as they did last year. We want to keep this team. The true fans are here.

Also wanted to point out a quote from James Mirtle, a hockey writer for the The Globe and Mail in Toronto (who has commented on my blog more than once).

I hear all the time how there aren't hockey fans in many of the new American markets, but it seems like every second email I get is someone from Raleigh or Tampa or Texas and they often have sound reasoning for every point they make.

The league's reach may be meagre on a wide scale, but in individual markets there are definitely growing groups of knowledgeable, hardcore fans. The funny thing is that, this season in particular, it was a lot of the markets that have been around for a long time that really struggled at the gate, and the bottom feeders in attendance the past two years have been St. Louis, Chicago, the Islanders, Washington and New Jersey.

Go Preds.
Go fans.