Nashville CEO on NHL All-Star Game expectations, creating new Predators fans (Q&A)

The Nashville Predators organization sees the 2016 NHL All-Star Game, and weekend, as an event that can change the template of future games.

It’s more than just the newly introduced 3-on-3 format, which has already created a buzz. It’s about the game and the community. The Predators hope this event, with its unique blend of high-end musical talent and compact set-up will push the All-Star envelope. The All-Star Game is scheduled for Jan. 31. The NHL’s skills competition is the day before.

“We’re fortunate that this town connects well on big events,” Predators CEO Sean Henry said.

Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, the city’s convention center and the Bridgestone Winter Park are all set up right next to each other.

“It’ll allow people to park their car or take a cab from the airport and then never look at it again and to be able to walk all over to every event in moments, not minutes but moments,” Henry said.

There are also the musical acts, which include country music stars Vince Gill, Jennifer Nettles and Lee Brice amongst others.

The expectations are high for the event from a city level. Nashville has grown in popularity in the last several years and turned into a major tourist destination in the United States.

And the event feels like a crowning achievement for many of Nashville’s owners who were Day One season ticket holders for the Predators. The group helped rescue the franchise in 2008 from a possible move to Canada.

“You earn the All-Star Game through a series of special years on the business front and by building the proper inroads in the community so when you’re given it, it’s a payoff for all those who play a hand in that,” Henry said.

Henry has been an important part of the growth of the Predators the last several seasons. He joined the team in the summer of 2010 as the team’s COO and seen the team’s average attendance rise from 14,979 the year before he came to 16,900 so far this year in the 17,113 seat Bridgestone Arena.

On December 1, Henry took over as team CEO from Jeff Cogen – who left the Preds to work for the Tampa Bay Rays.

We talked with Henry about the game, the music, what it means to the city of Nashville – and his take on enforcer John Scott being voted into the game.

How are you guys looking to put a big stamp on this event? This feels like an opportunity to help the game get its mojo back.

HENRY: I go pretty much every year with my family. It’s a great week. It really is. For me to answer your question I have to buy the premise it’s not a great weekend. What I will say is our goal, when we were awarded the All-Star Game as a community, we approached it the same way we do every game night and every event we do, every big event we do around town that we really wanted to do it and put on a better show than anyone ever has in the NHL. And I know that was Columbus’ goal last year, Ottawa’s All-Star year, Raleigh’s the year before – I know it’s the league’s goal year over year to make it more exciting with altering one or two things. This year is just another example. We’re fortunate that this town connects well on big events. Whether it’s the fourth of July, CMA Festival, CMA Awards, our own events, New Year’s Eve, the bowl game and when we had the opportunity when we were awarded it, we put together the 501c3 board and really ran this as a special event like we did with the Women’s (NCAA) Final Four a few years ago.

You connect with our business leaders around town – those who have long supported this community and we all had the same goal, and that was to do it better than anyone else has. You combine that with (chairman) Tom Cigarran’s vision of saying ‘hey take a look at the game format itself.’ This wasn’t just one person’s idea. It’s Gary (Bettman’s) and Bill (Daly’s) and Colin Campbell’s and all the GMs who have talked about it for years and people who have attended asking, ‘is there a better format for our players to showcase what they do?’

This year we were fortunate enough to work through some of the issues in creating that and going to the four-team 3-on-3 format and of course there will be some challenges with that and things to improve on for future games, but it is pretty exciting to host the event and do it a little bit differently than anyone else has before. And then coincidentally the same year we’re changing the game format? Sure.

We hope five, 10, 25 years from now people look back on the All-Star Game and say ‘remember that one in Nashville, that one was really the best.'

Everything in downtown Nashville is so compact. This should probably help the layout of the event as well I’d imagine.

When (former) mayor (Karl) Dean and his administration and the City Council decided to build the convention center where it was, the whole idea was to create the cross-section, of what I like to call, ‘Main and Main – the epicenter of the entertainment district.’

And it really showcases well for events like the SEC basketball tournament, the Women’s Final Four and the All-Star Game where we’re engaging the inside and outside of the building where we have the stage in front of the Country Music Hall of Fame, you have the Bridgestone Winter Park, you have the IntelliCentrics rink, fan events and the showcase events in our building, it’ll allow people to park their car or take a cab from the airport and then never look at it again and to be able to walk all over to every event in moments, not minutes but moments. Then you have the great establishments up and down 2nd Ave. and Broadway. It does create a special walking pattern because of that campus layout.

There seems to be no snow slide on the list of attractions. That was a favorite of ours last year.

We didn’t take Columbus’ map and say we’re doing this and not this and this and not that. We created our own event. That snow slide was awesome. My kids didn’t get a chance to go on it. I know weather put a little damper on it, but it was very cool, it really, really was.

This entire event seems extra special to your ownership group – especially Tom Cigarran.

When you look at our ownership group, all the local guys were Day One season ticket holders as fans. Back six or seven years ago when they bought into the team and worked with Mayor Dean and Governor (Phil) Bredesen to make sure the team stayed here and had an opportunity to flourish, they love the city.

For Tom especially he’s been our chairman for about six years and one thing he wanted to do was build this into a model franchise and turn the finances around and make this the pride of Nashville. There’s an enormous sense of pride for our ownership group, for our employees, for our executive team, hockey operations, everybody but also for our fans in the community and our partners at the city because we knew where we were. We know where we’re going, but to get awarded this event really was the NHL saying, ‘what a ride it’s been.’ T

hey knew the troubles we had before, and now look at where we are and how well established we are and things are stabilized and things are good.

There are so many good things happening in this city. It really was the ultimate payoff to say, ‘we have a new convention center. we can host anything.’ From a business standpoint our fans are so passionate, but they’ve also grown in number and our business partners have as well. It really was a thank you or congratulations to what a great job the city did with our partnership. That doesn’t happen if you don’t have a committed ownership base that’s going to give everyone the tools and the time necessary to establish a strong franchise.

These are some of the best musical acts in a long time for an NHL event. How were you guys able to get them involved in the weekend?

It’s funny because it’s such a great lineup. It’s all over the map and it’s going to be fun and they’re going to be in and out of the event from the TV shows and certain things we’re shooting right now to later to the outdoor shows the shows inside of fanfare, the concerts for the private events and the entertainment for the skills and All-Star Game itself.

But I think that kind of dismisses the work people put in to get involved. This is the time of year people are touring. There are a lot of people flying back one day and getting back on a tour just to be a part of it. These performers love their hometown as well and that says a lot. But it also exhibits, when you have Greg Oswald from WME and John Huie from CAA and Sara Trahern, the CEO of the CMAs coming together to bring that entertainment together, it’s pretty powerful.

Don’t underestimate the people who are playing, they’re choosing to be here for a day or two or three and quite a few of them are flying in and out to take care of their appearances because they want to be a part of it. And then you mix in someone like Vince Gill who has sat on our glass since the first game ever played. We call him the ‘Mayor of Smashville.’ He’s such an integral part of what we do when he jumps on stage with our bands or he brings some of his friends, it’s pretty special.

When you start with an ambassador like that and there are so many incredible acts who really enjoy being in our building. Whether it’s for their own show or for the excitement of the hockey games. It does show how special this city is. Not because we happen to be the home of where a lot of them live, but because of how much they care about the community and putting on their best face for the hockey community. 

Everyone seems to have an opinion about John Scott being voted into the All-Star Game. What’s yours?

There will be over 40 players here and four coaching staffs for the game and it’s going to be a great weekend with the skills competition and there’s always controversy. The great thing about any time you let the fans vote or you select is the discussion the day after. I don’t care if it’s the NCAA basketball tournament or the All-Star Game for the NHL or the Pro Bowl for football, All-Star Games for basketball or baseball, they always could include 10 more players, and you can make a good argument where ‘my guy deserves it more than your guy’ or whatever it is. That’s the great thing about sports – what it does for you in anticipating leading into it, and then the days and weeks and years after you get to talk about it.

I read something that said whenever you let fans vote, the fans are going to vote whether you like how it comes out or not certain things happen that give all of us a chance to talk about it and debate the results

This feels like a proud thing for your organization in general, no?

There’s no doubt. It’s a cool moment not just for the owners, but for all the employees and staff for everyone in the state and metro level but that most importantly are fans who’ve always been passionate and always supported the team and back seven or eight years ago when so many of them stepped up and made sure the right thing happened for the franchise (to keep it in Nashville), it is a really nice reward to say ‘here is the biggest planned NHL event.’

We all fight to get the Stanley Cup, but you don’t bid on that. You’re not awarded that. You earn that through a very special year. You earn the All-Star Game through a series of special years on the business front and by building the proper inroads in the community so when you’re given it, it’s a payoff for all those who play a hand in that.

What can this do for Nashville as a hockey market?

The real key to it is growing the overall popularity of the game and the overall understanding of how good a vibrant NHL Nashville Predators team is for the entire community; and again, when you get a chance to showcase an event like this and fundamentally change the format of it and then fundamentally change how the rest of the week is enjoyed and celebrated.

We started the celebration the first week in December when we opened the IntelliCentrics rink outside. So this All-Star Game started its celebration about six weeks ago. And for us there are still a few people in this community who have only been to a game or two and are casual fans. There are some who aren’t even at that level yet. By throwing this incredible party for six-to-eight weeks, it gives us an opportunity to bring some people who are more casual fans or observers more into the fold and introduce this incredible game to them and the history of the game during the All-Star Game to them. When you throw a big old party, people come and ideally a few more people get hooked.

It does give us an opportunity to showcase this great sport throughout the entire community and maybe make few inroads for those where the game isn’t second-nature for them, or those who still wear an opposing jersey a handful of times per-year when they visit no matter who they are because they grew up in ‘X’ city. It allows them one more opportunity to say, ‘you know what? This is my team.’ And that’s pretty exciting.

When the announcement was made 18 months ago, we had the opportunity to promote it all last season and all through the summer and then have our fans excited about ‘what is the uniform going to look like’ and ‘who are the acts?’ and ‘what are you going to do? and 'how is this going to be bigger and better than what’s done before?’ That’s a pretty big challenge because every All-Star Game I’ve ever been to, including last year and the year before were great, great events.

This is going be one more that we hope next year, whoever is hosting it next year they say, ‘how do we top that one.’ I think that’s good for our sport.

Can this lead to other hockey events in Nashville?

We hosted the NHL Draft in 2003, a pretty significant one. Then such a short period later you’re awarded the All-Star Game. That’s incredible. With that said, we all have an insatiable appetite like every NHL market has. Every one of us want to host every All-Star Game, every draft, every Stanley Cup – but when you look at where it is, we took a long look at hosting the World Junior Championships and the demands that had on the building we just didn’t have the dates available because the building is so busy with other events. It’s the busiest building in the country – it makes it really difficult to shut down for a couple of weeks because we already do that for the CMA Awards and the SEC basketball tournament. We have a 12-year run of SEC tournaments and that tournament combined with our success with the NCAA tournament, makes it really hard and almost unfair to our team to bring in a Frozen Four in that same time period because what it would do to our team and put ourselves out of the building for a long, long time. Other hockey events, the ones I like hosting more than others are postseason games.

By hosting this game ideally it allows our business side to continue to grow and try to get ourselves with more fans to make those playoffs more of an annual tradition, if you will, because those are the best events you can host.

We get questions from our fans because they’re so passionate of, ‘when is our outdoor game? When is our this? When is our that?’

Right now we’re focusing on this great All-Star Game, and if you do a good job with it – which we will – then that allows you to have that next conversation with the league for maybe some other events.

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper