Fans in Nashville are starting to take this whole “we’re playing against a team called the Ducks” thing pretty seriously.
For the second game in a row, a dead duck found its way onto the ice at Bridgestone Arena. In Game 3, a skinned carcass was heaved onto the ice surface during a stoppage in play, and the crowd went absolutely nuts as an ice crew member went to remove the bald duck. On Thursday, it was a fully feathered (but still very dead) duck that was tossed from the rafters above by one of the franchise record-setting 17,423 in attendance for Game 4.
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The methods used to sneak these duck corpses past security and into Bridgestone Arena are pretty simple and easily detectable, but it’s safe to assume that no one in security is giving the duck-smugglers much grief. Don Harris, the man responsible for the O.G. duck in Game 3, told The Tennessean that it really wasn’t much of an issue getting the beaked-bird into the arena and onto the ice.
When Dan’s nephew Doug showed up with the duck in hand, he stamped it with a Predators logo and painted the bill and feet a bright orange. Doug then tried to secure it to his body with plastic wrap, but it looked a bit off. Dan then simply tucked it under his Preds jersey and strolled right past security, according to the paper.
“I was sure I was going to get thrown out. We were sitting on row six and I got down really low to the ice. I waited until the security guard turned his head and heaved it over,” Harris said.
“He looked at me and didn’t say a word.”
Harris said that most people around him absolutely loved it, but there were a few who weren’t really cool with the situation. In response to someone asking if he’d killed the duck just to throw it on the ice (he didn’t), he said “I told him, ‘He died for the enjoyment of 20,000 hockey fans.’”
The team has a history of giving the ‘throw dead animals on the ice’ game a little southern flavour, as catfish have frequently been tossed onto the rink during Predators home games since 2003.
Hunting duck and fishing catfish are about as Tennessee as it gets. With Predators fans turning their arena into one of the loudest buildings in professional sports, those in Nashville are turning hockey into a cultural staple, too.
