Angry Predators fan sends catfish to NHL office
Nashville Predators fans are famous for tossing catfish on the ice to celebrate their team. But one fan felt they were also a disgustingly memorable way to protest a controversial call against the Predators, shipping two of them to NHL headquarters in Toronto this week.
Like many Nashville fans, Briley Meeks was angry. The NHL's Situation Room in Toronto had overturned a last-second, game-tying goal for her team on Tuesday night, using video review to claim that Viktor Arvidsson had jostled Florida Panthers goalie Roberto Luongo before Filip Forsberg scored. The Predators lost the game 2-1.
Meeks was inspired by the rants from fans on the Predators' Facebook fans page, as one of them posted the NHL's address and suggested someone send them a catfish in protest.
"I was like, 'OK, I will,'" said Meeks. "One minute I was sitting on my couch, the next minute I was going to buy fish and shipping it to Canada. It wasn't the refs in the game that made the call. It was Toronto. So they deserve the dead catfish."
As Meeks was on her way to pick up two catfish from Little's Fish Market in Germantown, she began wondering about the legality of her protest. So she called UPS, who then called Canadian customs to make sure it was OK to send two dead catfish across the border to protest a disallowed goal in a hockey game.
It was, and soon Meeks had sealed up the fish in a cooler -- having written "YOU SUCK" in block letters inside its cover -- and shipped them off, for a total cost of $150 for materials, postage and deceased sea creatures. She chronicled all of it in a Facebook video that went viral among Nashville fans, and called into a local Predators radio show to reveal her protest.
As of 8 a.m. ET on Thursday, the package had cleared Canadian customs and was en route to NHL headquarters in Toronto. An email to the NHL for comment wasn't returned.
"I hope they're not mad about it. It's just a prank. But we got robbed. The players were stunned. Even the Panthers players and fans knew it was a bad call too," she said.
"I do want to clarify that there was no ice in the cooler. I wanted it to be disgusting."
