NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Music City is very much a football town. But it’ll be watching hockey tonight.
The Nashville Predators play the Penguins in Pittsburgh in the first game of the Stanley Cup finals, in the culmination of a major breakthrough for hockey in Tennessee.
The Tennessee Oilers first played in the state in 1997 and became the Titans as they moved into what is now Nissan Stadium in 1999. A year earlier the expansion Predators began play.
The two teams took very different courses.
The 1999 Titans pulled off the Music City Miracle and later advanced to Super Bowl XXXIV in Atlanta.