Tonight’s broadcast schedule

Franklin vs. Ensworth-Nolensville-Lipscomb - 8:35 PM pregame, 8:40 PM faceoff BROADCAST LINK

Previewing tonight’s games

The six Tier 1 teams who are competing for the GNASH Cup have two records: their second half record, and their GNASH Cup record. If a team has an asterisk (*) next to their GNASH Cup record, it means that they have been eliminated from GNASH Cup contention.

Rutherford Rampage (3-0-0) vs. USN-BA-Nashville Christian-FRA-Goodpasture (2-3-0) - 7:10 PM @ Centennial A
Through three games, the Rampage have scored 10 goals and allowed just two, both of which came against Centennial last Wednesday. The excellent play in goal by Alec Dawes, combined with their top guys like Justin Dickinson and Eddie Maze finding the back of the net, has them atop Tier 2. Meanwhile, USN are coming off of a 7-1 clobbering of Independence on Monday. The goaltending matchup could be interesting. Jackson Wilson could be making his first start for Rutherford since backstopping them to an incredible 5-1 win over Ravenwood on October 25. However, Rampage head coach Mike Jones told me on Monday that if Ethan Burau decides to give Mattilda Cox the start, he will counter with Abby Ricalday, which would be her first start since the Brentwood game on October 30. For USN, this is their penultimate game of the regular season; they’re the first team to play their 13th game. They will very likely not take to the ice again until the last week of the regular season, which I suspect will be the week of January 22, because GNASH would not want them sitting on the sidelines for a long time before the playoffs.

I’ll pick the Rampage to win this one.

Ravenwood (0-4-0, 3-8-0*) vs. Summit-Page (2-1-0) - 7:30 PM @ Antioch-North
So, I found out from a very trusted (anonymous) source (who was actually offered the Raptors’ head coaching job) that Ravenwood’s board decided to part ways with their coaching staff and bring in James Gately due to being unhappy about the fact that the previous staff wasn’t giving the young, inexperienced players enough playing time to get adjusted to GNASH. It’s not an unreasonable want. Hockey costs a lot of money, and in GNASH, you play anywhere from 16 to 21 games in a season (I’m including playoff games in that calculation), so, if you don’t get a lot of playing time, you’re basically getting an unwanted VIP experience. Gately seems to be adhering to the board’s wishes, which means that Ravenwood have gone a bit…backwards recently. They weren’t great before, but now they’ve been blown out in three straight games as the team gets used to the playing time being spread around a bit more. I can’t exactly blame the previous staff for giving the best players more playing time, though; they want to put the best team out on the ice, and Ravenwood came very close to dropping down to Tier 2 after the first half (to be completely honest, it might have been beneficial). If the (no-longer) reigning GNASH Cup and (still…for now) reigning Preds Cup champs had taken the drop, it would’ve been a bit of an embarrassment. Tonight, they face a Summit team with almost as much depth as Franklin and Ensworth, a Summit team coming off of a blowout win over Montgomery Bell on Monday, taking advantage of the Big Red’s star goalie, Hunter Wieck, being given the night off. A Summit team with their own really fast skaters (Zach Ellis, Aiden Meyer, Aiden Garner) that could run circles around the Ravenwood learning youngsters.

Yeah, I’m saying Summit win this one.

Hendersonville-Beech-Gallatin (1-2-0) vs. Brentwood (2-1-0) - 8:30 PM @ Centennial B
For the first time this season, the Commandos have lost consecutive games, with their heartbreaking 7-6 loss to the Outlaws on Monday following up a 4-0 shutout at the hands of Rutherford last week. Now, they meet an old foe they once played against in the 2019 Predators Cup Final. Brentwood and Hendersonville last played each other on December 10, 2021, as the Bruins beat who were then Hendersonville-Beech-Merrol Hyde 7-4 on their way to a record sixth GNASH Cup title. The Commandos have pretty much made a home in the lower tier since their failed lunge at the Preds Cup, although they managed to keep a place in Tier 1 in the 2019-20 season before dropping the next season, while the Bruins are hoping this is just a temporary stay. Brentwood are coming off of a 6-3 win over Hendersonville’s other Sumner County rivals Station Camp-Liberty Creek on Monday. The Bruins have won two straight, as they beat Indy 6-1 last week. Their best players such as Clayton Ellsworth and Trey Wilkins seem to be finding their scoring touch at last. But this could end up being a scorefest like the Outlaws-Commandos game on Monday. Brentwood’s defense isn’t perfect, and their goaltending isn’t either.

Still, I think they beat Hendersonville.

Franklin (2-0-1, 8-0-2) vs. Ensworth-Nolensville-Lipscomb (1-1-1) - 8:40 PM @ Centennial A
And so, they finally meet. The two deepest teams in Tier 1. This is a very possible Predators Cup Final preview. Franklin are coming off of a 2-2 tie with MBA last Monday, but thanks to Summit’s win on Monday, the Big Red have gifted the Admirals a HUGE opportunity to put themselves right on the verge of winning the GNASH Cup regular season championship. If Franklin win tonight, they would need to win just one more game next month to claim it. The thing is, if Franklin had beaten MBA last week, and Monday’s Summit-MBA result still happened, the Admirals would be going into tonight’s game with a chance to clinch the GNASH Cup. That’s right. They would’ve had a chance to clinch it before Christmas. But, alas, because last week’s game ended in a tie, the fight goes until January. With a win, Franklin would knock Pope Prep-MLK-GCA out of contention. The Ice Tigers, meanwhile, are coming off of a surprising 6-2 loss to Mt. Juliet last week. They had started the second half well before that, with the 2-2 tie with MBA, where they outshot the Big Red almost 3:1, and the 7-4 win over Ravenwood. But the loss to MJ is a stumbling block. That said, this should be a crazy back-and-forth game, with end-to-end action. Get ready to hear the names Gavin Akers, Maclaine Butters, Ben Sonkin, Justin Nozko and others a lot tonight. It should be fun. I hope it’s fun.

I’ll pick Franklin to win.

Station Camp-Liberty Creek (1-3-0) vs. Independence-Ravenwood 2 (0-4-0) - 9:15 PM @ Antioch-North
This is the only game of the night that is a rematch from earlier in the season. The Bison clobbered the Eagles 8-1 on October 18. Since then, the Eagles have remained winless (though, there was that epic 7-7 tie with Centennial on October 25), while the Bison claimed a second win of the season, this one against USN, last Wednesday. I don’t see Indy getting revenge tonight. They took a big beating from USN on Monday, losing 7-1, having only lost the first meeting 2-1.

I’m picking the Bison to complete the regular season sweep.

Standings

Monday’s final scores

The game that was broadcast by MTSN is in BOLD.

USN-BA-Nashville Christian-FRA-Goodpasture 7, Independence-Ravenwood 2 1
Mt. Juliet-Wilson Central-Green Hill 3, Father Ryan 2
Pope Prep-MLK-GCA 7, Ravenwood 2
Summit-Page 7, Montgomery Bell 1 PODCAST LINK
Tennessee Outlaws 7, Hendersonville-Beech-Gallatin 6
Brentwood 6, Station Camp-Liberty Creek 3

Podcasts

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Miscellaneous links

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The next newsletter comes out tomorrow, December 7.