Tag: Nashville Predators

Mayor Dean, Host of Celebrities Celebrate the Grand Opening of the Ford Ice Center

Members of the Vanderbilt Hockey Club joined the city’s biggest party of the weekend last Friday when the Nashville Predators and Mayor Karl Dean hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the new Ford Ice Center located in Antioch, Tennessee.

The crowd attending the ceremony - a veritable who’s who from the Nashville hockey community that included Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton, Predators defenseman Seth Jones, 20-time Grammy winner and country music star Vince Gil, and Predators broadcast personalities Pete Weber, Stu Grimson, and Terry Crisp – was beyond excited to see the initiative officially cross the finish line. The opening represented a 50% increase in the amount of ice available to the greater Nashville area, an increase to 6 ice sheets from 4.

Spot a few familiar faces? The club was thrilled to not only carve out a few spots in the crowd but also don their new jerseys for the event. They’ll never be whiter and fresher!

After hopping on the ice for the free community skate and also grabbing a quick bite to eat, the Vanderbilt hockey players definitely left with the same assessment as Seth Jones. The facility is truly world class and will be an amazing asset for the Nashville hockey community for years to come.

Vanderbilt Ice Hockey Team To Host Inaugural 2014 MAPCO College Hockey Scholar Shootout

Ice hockey tournament set for October 3rd through October 5th, 2014, at the Ford Ice Center in Antioch, Tennessee, will focus on academic excellence in addition to athletic performance

Tuesday, 08.19.2014 | 12:00PM  |  Vanderbilt Hockey Team

NASHVILLE, TN – Vanderbilt University’s ice hockey club will host the inaugural 2014 MAPCO College Hockey Scholar Shootout Friday, October 3rd, through Sunday, October 5th, 2014, the Vanderbilt Hockey program announced today. The tournament will feature Vanderbilt alongside hockey programs from five other universities: the University of Florida, Georgia Tech, the University of North Carolina, Northwestern, and Wake Forest.

“The excitement for this event is huge because you have some big name schools participating,” Vanderbilt sophomore and co-chair for the Scholar Shootout Andrew Dellapina said, “and especially because we’re putting such a special focus on the ‘student’ part of the student-athlete paradigm.”

The teams participating, club-level programs that participate in the American Collegiate Hockey Conference (ACHA), all hail from universities that rank in the top-50 academically according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2013 College Rankings.

“The hockey players participating are non-scholarship athletes who are truly students first,” Vanderbilt head coach Thomas Bernstein said, “but they also love hockey and take a lot of pride in playing for their schools. They’re super talented, competitive athletes who all want to win this tournament so it should make for a really entertaining experience for players, coaches, and especially fans.”

The Shootout will take place at the Ford Ice Center, a brand new facility built by the city of Nashville and managed by the Nashville Predators organization. The 86,000-square-foot facility, which houses two ice rinks, eight locker rooms, several multi-function rooms, concession stands, a pro-shop, a workout facility, a video room and space for restaurants, is set to open its doors later this month.

“The opening of Ford Ice Center is an exciting time for both the hockey and skating communities in Middle Tennessee,” Ford Ice Center General Manager Danny Butler said. “All of us at Ford Ice Center are proud to be home to the Vanderbilt Hockey Club this season and are looking forward to welcoming the visiting teams at the Scholar Shootout in October, an event that showcases great student-athletes and is another shining example of how hockey is growing in the south.”

The event will be free for fans courtesy of MAPCO, the title sponsor for the event.

Further details on the 2014 MAPCO College Hockey Scholar Shootout, including the schedule for games, will be released in the coming weeks via the @VandyIceHockey Twitter account and www.vanderbilthockey.com website.

 

Download a PDF of this Press Release