Fan Who Missed Free Stanley Cup Final Tickets Finds Redemption

Andrew Fudge can't say he's not a lucky guy anymore.
In June, he won a contest entered by thousands, after all, so if that doesn't equal lucky, then what does? There was just one problem, Fudge didn't know he'd won.
That's right. Fudge, a Nashville native, entered the
Predators Twice Daily Tickets Competition
, was selected to receive two free tickets to the 2017 Stanley Cup Final, received a congratulatory direct message on Twitter, and yet, he missed the notification.

That is until in mid-July - six weeks after the Final had concluded - when he was clearing out those annoying, number-filled circles on his phone and decided to update Twitter as well.
Even when he first laid eyes on the message, he still thought it was a fake.
"At first, I thought the message was just spam because it says 'congratulations' and you know how direct messages are on other media, so I'm like, 'Oh, it's probably just spam,'" Fudge said via phone Tuesday. "So I read it and I'm like, 'You have got to be kidding me.'"

Inevitably while reading this story, you felt your heart rise with excitement, but ended up shaking your head at the prospect of losing something so valuable. Was the Preds' gift to Fudge priceless? With reports of seats going for more than $10,000 apiece on secondary markets during the series, the answer is essentially, yes.
"My wife, she got more mad than me over it," Fudge laughed. "She sees how stressed out I was and how superstitious I was during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. She was like, 'I can't believe you missed this.'"
Don't worry, the Predators didn't leave this as a tale of regret.
On Tuesday, a day after Fudge opened Twitter to find what he'd lost, he received another message from

, this one inviting him to take in Opening Night at Bridgestone Arena on Oct. 10, a game where the Preds will raise a Western Conference Champions banner for the first time in franchise history.

"I thought that if I can get to a game next year, if it's not a playoff game, I want to go to game one at home because I want to see the very first banner in team history," Fudge said. "That would be pretty awesome to see it get raised to the rafters."
Now, thanks to some misfortune, that wish will come true. And yes, Fudge has direct message notifications activated on his phone now, he replied to accept the Preds' offer of Opening Night seats within two minutes.