Crisp Looks Back on Career, Praises Predators Fans as Retirement Nears

Terry Crisp was destined to become a broadcaster.
He was bound to become a coach, too, and a player before that. Sometimes, people are just supposed to become a hockey lifer. Crispy, as he's known throughout the sport and beyond, has given just about everything to the game, and he's received so much more in return.
Of course, growing up in Parry Sound, Ontario, he never could have imagined he'd one day move to Nashville, Tennessee, to join an expansion franchise and grow the game in a town once known only for music.

That part of the journey was still decades away. He had Stanley Cups to win first - two as a player with the Philadelphia Flyers and one more as head coach of the Calgary Flames in 1989. His career took him all over North America - Boston, St. Louis, New York, Tampa Bay and beyond - his adoring wife, Sheila, by his side the entire time.
But Nashville - the city that has turned out to be their last on the hockey circuit - has captured their hearts, and it's where the Crisps will stay once Terry puts his microphone down for the final time at season's end.
Again, whether he knew it or not, it's a job he was destined to have, and no one tells a better story than Crispy. On Friday morning, ahead of a weekend full of hockey set to honor his career, he revealed that his gift of gab has always been prevalent.
"I think it was because I've been accused as a player of being a yapper on the ice and whatnot," Crisp laughed when asked about eventually turning to broadcasting. "When you're a third and fourth liner sitting on the bench as a player, you've got a lot of time to yap going out there. One night, we had one of the best referees ever - I loved him, Bill Friday - but I was yapping one night. I'm on the ice, and Bill does something, a bad call, and I'm up in his face and I'm giving it to him, and he's just looking like in the old times, old school, and he goes, 'Well, Crispy, I just gave you 45 seconds to make a complete fool of yourself. Do you need some more time?'
"And then [in Philadelphia with our head coach at the time] Fred Shero always used to say, 'Oh, yeah, Crispy is the coach. Just listen to him on the bench behind me. He's coaching, not me.' So, it was sort of just a transformation where I'm the coach, and then after coaching, I was still yapping. So, where else can you go to yap but on radio or TV?"

Crisp has done a whole lot more than just yap with the Preds for almost a quarter of a century. He's helped to teach and grow the game in a market where most didn't know what icing meant and how players changed on the fly when the team began play in 1998.
Those days are long gone now, and Crisp, along with Voice of the Predators Pete Weber, were the voices for the first generation of Predators fans who eventually fell in love with the game - and the way it sounded through the broadcasters' eyes.
And now, after two-plus decades of Predators hockey, Crisp has seen a transformation take place.
"My greatest joy now is sitting in the concourse and watching three generations that Pete Weber and all of us raised in the game," Crisp said. "We've got the grandfather coming with the father and now the kids, and that's our bloodline. It's the greatest thing."
A grandfather himself, Crisp has seen just about everything during his time in Nashville, but he's reached a point where he's ready for that role - and only that role. He jokes that his credit card bill already proves he spends plenty of time with the grandchildren as it is, and they're all in town this weekend to see "Coach" honored in a way he so rightfully deserves.
Crisp will no longer be around as much when the puck drops next season, but he's bound to catch a game or two at some point. After all, staying completely away from a sport he's loved all his life wouldn't really be an option - and he wouldn't want to miss the chance to join Predators fans, too.
"We have the best sports fans around, and I know I live here, but no other fans support their team like these people through the good times and the rough times," Crisp said. "And when I have people in from Canada or from wherever and they come to our building here and watch a hockey game - my relatives, our friends - it's the same story for the last 23 years. They say, 'What a building. Your fans are unbelievable.' … That tells you that people love our fans. So, we just have the best sports fans around."
They'd surely refer to Crisp as the best broadcaster around - a job he was destined to have in this town.