Voice of the Predators Pete Weber Explains Absence and Road to Come

In the nearly quarter century the Nashville Predators have skated at 501 Broadway, few figures have proved more important to the vitality of the franchise than Pete Weber.

Dubbed "The Voice of the Predators," Weber joined the Preds franchise from the ground floor in 1998, and in the 25 years since, has used his passion for the sport, quick wit and sharp sense of humor to convert hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans into die-hard hockey fans.

"People love him, and you see it," Predators President & CEO Sean Henry said. "35-year-olds who came here as 10-year-olds for the first time are now bringing their 10-year-olds to a game. And the commonality between both of them is Pete Weber, who was the one who put them to bed calling the game on the TV or radio."

The Diagnosis

In late November, Weber was diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), a brain disorder that occurs when the ventricles - which circulate fluid throughout the organ - become filled with too much cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).

The ensuing symptoms of NPH include loss of coordination and trouble walking, which Weber began noticing after returning home from the Predators' European Global Series trip.

"I seemed to be walking ahead of myself," he said. "Slightly tipped forward and unbalanced."

On the team's Oct. 15 trip to Dallas, Weber fell in the aisle of the plane. Before the team's home game against Washington on Oct. 29, he fell again.

That time, Weber ended up in the emergency room.

After a series of inconclusive tests in the weeks that followed, Weber went to Vanderbilt University Medical Center for a spinal tap, where 30 milliliters - roughly two tablespoons - of CSF was drained from his body.

The almost immediate relief of symptoms all but confirmed the diagnosis, though ultimately pointed to a positive prognosis.

Weber would need to return to Vanderbilt for a brief, one-time procedure. After that, he'd be on the road again.

Lifted by the good news and a better-than-fair outlook, Weber opted to share the news with his Predators extended family.

As he postulated, "Why be secretive?"

Weber hopes sharing his diagnosis - and the details of his upcoming procedure - will serve to enlighten in a medical capacity, though others view the candor as a testament to Pete's special connection with his Smashville family.

"You trust your family and you let your guard down a little bit," Henry said. "We would never talk about why he wasn't on the road, of course, unless it was something that he and [his wife] Claudia were willing to share. And I'm glad that they were, because there are tens and hundreds of thousands of people that just love the guy… And you only open up that way to people that you care about and that care about you."

The Attending Lineup

When Weber goes in for the procedure early on Monday morning, Jan. 9 - "When the cows come home," as he described it - he'll be in the care of an All-Star roster.

First, there's Weber's neurosurgeon, Dr. Dario J. Englot, M.D. and Ph.D., who attended both medical and graduate school at Yale before traveling west to complete neurosurgery training at the University of California, San Francisco.

There Dr. Englot chose to train within the "functional neurosurgery" subspecialty, which encompasses all procedures improving the functionality of the brain and crosses paths with disorders like NPH.

After completing his neurosurgery training, Dr. Englot arrived in the Music City to complete a fellowship at Vanderbilt, learning alongside Dr. Peter Konrad, former director of the university's functional neurosurgery program.

When Dr. Konrad left to head up West Virginia University's neurosurgery department, Dr. Englot filled his mentor's position leading Vanderbilt's functional neurosurgery program.

Joining Dr. Englot in Weber's care will be Dr. Richard A. Pierce, M.D., Ph.D. and F.A.C.S.

Dr. Pierce received both his medical and graduate degrees at the University of Virginia before completing a general surgery residency at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and a laparoscopic and endoscopic surgery fellowship in Portland, Oregon.

From there, Dr. Pierce returned to his undergraduate alma mater Duke University as an assistant professor at the school's Department of Surgery.

Now an assistant professor of surgery in Nashville, Dr. Pierce splits his time between Vanderbilt and the Nashville VA Medical Center.

Like Dr. Englot, after arriving at Vanderbilt Dr. Pierce crossed paths with Dr. Konrad and worked with him for several years performing the same procedure Weber will receive Monday.

Then there's Physician Assistant Trisha Conwell, described by both Dr. Pierce and Englot as "the glue" of the team.

Conwell, who received her undergraduate degree from the University of Tennessee, is a key player - attending every NPH clinic appointment and procedure.

As Dr. Englot put it, "If she's on vacation, we wait until she's back."

Finally - included at Weber's insistence - there's Norman, VUMC's facility dog who comforted Pete following his spinal tap procedure.

Rest assured, the Voice of the Predators is in excellent hands - and paws.

The Procedure

To return Pete to full working order, Doctors Englot and Pierce will work in tandem - with Conwell assisting - to perform what's known as a ventriculoperitoneal shunt (VP shunt).

The procedure, to employ a fair bit of understatement, is a marvel of modern medicine.

Dr. Englot will make a small incision in Weber's scalp and insert the top portion of a tube into one of his ventricles, feeding the bottom portion down to his abdomen.

At the same time, Dr. Pierce will work laparoscopically, making small incisions and utilizing a scope to ensure that the bottom portion is placed correctly in Weber's peritoneal cavity.

Speaking via Zoom from his VUMC office, medical and doctorate degrees peeking out from their frames behind him, Dr. Pierce walked through the steps.

"I'll insert a special needle that blows up the belly with gas and then we put a port in there and our camera," Dr. Pierce said. "Then with the camera we look back up toward where we want the tubing to come down underneath the right ribcage. When the tubing is there, we put a needle through, pass a wire through it and then pass the tubing over the wire and into the belly… You get two little quarter-inch incisions and we can watch the tubing and make sure it goes exactly where we want and then it lies in the right place."

Simple enough.

Once connected, the tube will move - or "shunt" - excess CSF from Weber's ventricles into his abdomen where it will be absorbed by the body.

Though complex in its description, Dr. Englot says the procedure is likely one of the most common in neurosurgery - and one himself and Dr. Pierce are more than familiar with.

"I've probably done well over 100 of them over the past nine years that I've been here, maybe even more," Dr. Pierce said. "We set aside the second Monday of every month to focus on these cases. So sometimes we only do one or two, but sometimes we'll do four or five in a day."

While VP shunts have been performed for years, the relatively new dual-surgeon method allows for a less invasive procedure with a significantly lower risk of complications to an already low-risk operation.

"We now do colon surgery this way and we do surgery on the stomach and intestines this way," Dr. Pierce said. "The nice thing is that it allows us to watch the tubing go in and see exactly where it's going to be placed, and then have much smaller incisions with less pain and less chance for developing a hernia at that site later."

It gets better.

Affixed to the top portion of the tube resting in Weber's ventricle will be a magnetically-controllable valve that can be adjusted on an as-needed basis by his doctors - though not, as Pete joked, by Claudia for purposes of mind control.

The whole event is expected to last just 90 minutes - 21 minutes shorter than the longest game in Predators history, which Weber famously called with an uproarious finale - while the procedure itself will likely take no more than a full period of hockey to complete.

Following the procedure, Weber will stay at VUMC for the night, and barring any complications, will be released the following morning and cleared to return to business as usual within a matter of weeks.

The Return

To be certain, Pete Weber will be back at full steam sooner rather than later.

Sitting in his Nashville home a few days before his procedure - Claudia keeping watch close by - Weber reflected on what the last few months have shown him.

In his absence on the road, he's received some clutch "pinch hitting" from ESPN 102.5 The Game's Max Herz, while Program Director Chase McCabe has made a point of featuring the iconic sportscaster on all pregame broadcasts and Darren McFarland, co-host of the Predators Official Podcast, gave him a pulpit on a recent episode.

"That's been tremendously uplifting for me," Weber said. "To be able to hear Max do the job that he's doing and to see the friendship that comes pouring through from everybody else - that is more than I have a right to ask for."

Weber is also blessed by the presence of his wife, and has been for 33 years of marriage.

The secret, according to Claudia: road trips.

Throughout that time, and the past few months especially, Claudia hasn't strayed far from Pete's side.

"She leads my home team," he said.

Through the challenging days, Weber's team captain also took notice of her husband's expansive support system, and made a point of joining his Zoom call Thursday to give thanks.

"It's a team effort," Claudia said. "We're almost at 25 years with the organization. We care about people, they care about us and there's not much more that can be said."

Of course, one can rarely bring up Weber without mentioning broadcast partner Terry Crisp in the same breath.

Naturally, Weber's partner in crime was never far from his side throughout the challenging journey.

"I called him every day," Crisp said. "Every day I would phone him and say, 'How are you doing? What's up? What's going on?' And he knew it was coming. Eventually, he knew not to answer," Crisp laughed.

The hallmark of every great Weber and Crisp broadcast - humor - has encouragingly stayed well intact between the two friends during the last few months - just ask Crispy the name of Weber's diagnosis.

"Jokes have always been paramount with us," Crisp said. "You don't touch when certain things happen to people, but when we found out what this was - that it could be solved and was going to be solved - that took a load off. Put some humor back into it."

To take another load off, the Predators made sure Weber knew that when the time came, his microphone would be there waiting.

After all, it's not Predators hockey without its iconic voice.

"Some of the best days aren't around our games or around our practices - they're those hot summers when you're in the building and the office is doing whatever and you turn the corner and there Pete is, just sitting over by the break room or in Pete and Terry's Tavern holding court," Henry said. "You're just always happy when Pete is around, you really are. And I look forward to walking through this with him."