“When they quit playing, they stayed in Nashville. Hixon says some of those former players were at her mother’s funeral services last year. Ken Murphy, a team captain nicknamed Red, went into construction. Defenseman Flo Pilote owned a bar called the Penalty Box. Several instead opened businesses in Middle Tennessee. Only a few players ever made it to the NHL. That’s when they won back-to-back EHL championships. “It was just exciting, you know, for an 11-year-old kid who really didn’t know much about hockey. ![]() Her mother was secretary to the team president. The Franklin woman became a lifelong hockey fan by attending Dixie Flyers games those first seasons. Just two chairs sitting there,” remembers Cathy Maxwell Hixon. In fact, there wasn’t even a penalty box. Municipal Auditorium was the city’s only ice sheet. In Nashville, hockey was a northern novelty. The Dixie Flyers were primarily people like Graham - Canadians who hoped to earn a living playing hockey at a time when there were just six teams in the NHL. I really didn’t want to leave Nashville, but I had to go where the money was back then.” Still, Graham was sorry when he was transferred to Connecticut in 1964. The rink in Nashville and many other venues was shorter than regulation. The Dixie Flyers played in the Eastern Hockey League, two levels below the NHL. “So, it was tough, and we didn’t wear helmets. Use a rasp, sandpaper, and then when you got close to a guy, you could slap him in the head with it and cut him open,” he says. “First thing I learned when I came down is, you take the blade of your stick and you sharpen the toe. ![]() His initial impression: This was a far rougher place. Graham arrived in Nashville at age 20, after playing in Ontario and Philadelphia. That’s when Middle Tennessee’s love affair with hockey all began. But there are a few fans who can trace their enthusiasm back further - to the first professional team to play in Nashville: The Dixie Flyers, who took the ice nearly four decades before the Preds. And it hasn’t changed.”Īs the Nashville Predators make their first-ever run through the Stanley Cup Finals, their bandwagon grows more crowded by the day. ![]() He was a winger for the Dixie Flyers during their first two seasons, starting in 1962. Fragments survive on the internet.ĭon Graham remembers. The opponents had names like the Worcester Warriors and the Roanoke Valley Rebels.Īnd instead of international TV audiences for the Nashville Dixie Flyers, there were only local broadcasts. The crowds often numbered in the hundreds - or, on a good night, perhaps a few thousand - sitting right up next to the ice in Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium.
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