2022 NHL Stadium Series in Nashville to combine hockey, country music

NASHVILLE -- The Nashville Predators will host an outdoor game for the first time when they play the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2022 Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series at Nissan Stadium on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET; TNT, SN360, TVAS2, NHL LIVE).

They expect more than 65,000 fans -- the largest home crowd in their history and one of the largest crowds in NHL history -- for an event that will combine hockey and live country music like never before.
"It's a historic thing to go to," said Tennessee Titans left tackle Taylor Lewan, a Predators fan who will attend an NHL game in the stadium in which he plays in the NFL. "It's very cool that a hockey team is playing outside in the South at my office, essentially."
But it's just the natural evolution of NHL events in what has become a honky-tonk hockey town.
"It's a reward for your franchise, for your fans and for the city," said David Poile, the Predators general manager since they joined the NHL in 1998-99. "It's just going to be a fabulous event for us and just another step in the direction of where we want to go as a successful franchise both on and off the ice."
The first time the Predators hosted an NHL event was the 2003 NHL Draft. Poile said Nashville received a big boost in recognition as a hockey market because of the crowd of hockey people who attended.
"And I think, honestly, all the fun that everybody had downtown," Poile said with a laugh.
Nashville received a bigger boost when it hosted the 2016 NHL All-Star Game and the 2017 Stanley Cup Final.
NHL chief content officer Steve Mayer's first NHL event was a Nashville event: the 2016 All-Star Game. Vince Gill sang the U.S. national anthem, and several other artists performed throughout the night.
The 2017 Stanley Cup Final raised the bar (and the roofs of the bars). Before Game 3, Alan Jackson performed on a temporary stage on Broadway. Before Game 6, Luke Bryan performed on the third floor of Tootsies World Famous Orchid Lounge. Each time, tens of thousands of people packed the street, the sidewalks and the honky-tonks.
"This place is incredible," Mayer said. "We absolutely realized, 'We've got to do an outdoor game here.' One thing leads to another."
Mayer's goal at each NHL event is to make it unique and tailor it to the city, and as a former IMG Media executive producer, he draws from his experience in music and entertainment. Some cities are easier than others.
"Here it's like, 'OK, we're going to Nashville -- music and entertainment and Broadway and the Preds,'" Mayer said. "But there are a lot of moving parts in this one. We've kind of challenged ourselves to make it memorable."
This time, the festivities start Thursday, when the Predators retire Pekka Rinne's No. 35 before playing the Dallas Stars at Bridgestone Arena (8:30 p.m. ET; BSSO, BSSW, ESPN+, NHL LIVE).
From Thursday to Saturday, the Predators will host Bridgestone Winter Park, with food, activities, exhibits and, of course, live music at Walk of Fame Park near Bridgestone Arena.
Broadway will be shut down Saturday.
"The scene on Broadway is going to be pretty spectacular," Mayer said. "I think of all the bars are going to Pred themselves out."
Fans can walk across the Cumberland River on the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge, which will be decorated for the Stadium Series, and attend the Truly Hard Seltzer NHL PreGame fan festival outside Nissan Stadium.
The teams will make a special entrance.
"You'll see," Mayer said. "It'll be a parade of sorts. That's all I'll say."
The Stadium Series is meant to be progressive, not nostalgic like the Winter Classic or Heritage Classic. Inside Nissan Stadium, the field will celebrate Broadway, with neon lights, a cowboy boot with a skate blade and a cowboy hat with a hockey stick in its band.
Live music will play all night, with not one but two headliners in the first intermission: Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley.
"We actually have three stages -- not one, not two, but three stages -- that are on the field, and because it's Nashville, the band gear is going stay up on there all the time," Mayer said. "It's part of the set design. It'll look like a honky-tonk."
Nashville is far beyond needing to establish itself as a hockey market. The Stadium Series is evidence of that. But the area is growing rapidly, and hockey has room to grow. The Stadium Series can help that.
Predators president Sean Henry estimated 100,000 people have moved to the Nashville area during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"There's a lot of people that haven't experienced a huge event with us," Henry said. "So it's also an opportunity to kind of kick the doors back open and say, 'You may have moved from Detroit or Philly or New York or Toronto, wherever, come taste some Predator hockey, because it's a lot of fun.'"