Dynamic Duo of Weber, Crisp Taught Nashville How to Love Hockey

In the earliest stage of one of the most popular broadcasting duos in Nashville sports history, Terry Crisp figured he would work all of one game with Pete Weber.
That's right, just one.
Turns out he was off by roughly 16 years.

The Predators knew Weber was locked in as the team's play-by-play man heading into the franchise's inaugural season in 1998-99. But Crisp was a tougher get, as he'd coached the Tampa Bay Lightning the previous season, was still living in Florida, and didn't necessarily have a burning desire to be a broadcaster at that point.
So Gerry Helper, then the Predators' senior vice president of communications, called in a favor. Helper, who knew Crisp after working with him for six years in Tampa Bay, asked the colorful Canadian to fly up to serve as an analyst for just one Predators game.
"I said, 'Sure, all right, I'll come up and do it,'" Crisp recalled. "So I flew up, met Pete, did the game, shook hands and away I went again. I figured that was it."
But neither Helper nor the Preds were going to give up that easily, so they kept coaxing Crisp to fly back to do more games that first season, recognizing the chemistry he and Weber had on the airwaves with one another.
At the end of that first year, former Predators President Jack Diller suggested Crisp continue in his role the following season.
"Being the smart-aleck as always, I said, 'I'll tell you what, Jack. You give me a three-year contract, we'll sell our house in Florida, buy a house in Nashville and move up,'" Crisp said. "He said, 'OK.' So all of a sudden, I have to get on the phone, call my wife and say, 'Honey, I have to sell the house. We're moving to Nashville. She says, 'OK.'"
That cemented the coupling of Crisp and Weber - or "Crispy" and "Bubba" as they referred to one another - who were the only voices Predators fans heard for the better part of the franchise's first seven seasons. The Preds simulcast Crisp and Weber during that stretch, meaning they were on both the radio and television broadcasts.

Over the following nine seasons, the jovial duo moved strictly to television, proving highly popular among Preds backers because of their extensive knowledge and their comedic touch.
Today, Weber remains the team's radio play-by-play man, while Crisp serves as a between-periods analyst for FOX Sports.
"I wish I was smart enough to tell you what gave us that chemistry, but I just don't know," Weber said. "It was one of those things that just clicked right away, and legitimately so.
"I think I could sense what buttons to push, just from talking to him, that would get him going. Now I didn't always want to get him going. But I did like to get him to explain things to our audience."
Crisp says a similar sense of humor, a shared love of hockey and the fact their wives - Sheila Crisp and Claudia Weber - became fast friends were some of the reasons he and Weber connected so well.
"A guy couldn't ask for a better guy than Pete to sit beside because all I have do is start the sentence and Pete could finish it," Crisp said. "We started knowing each other's thoughts. I was sort of blessed with the fact that the guy I joined up with was the consummate professional, had a great sense of humor, a photographic memory and did not let anything get in the way of having fun and enjoying what we did."
One of the favorite memories of both men occurred on the night of April 1,1999, when Crisp and Weber were going through their usual pre-game routine, preparing for what was - back in those days - a live intro for the upcoming contest against Philadelphia.
Only this time, Weber and the broadcasting crew planned on having a little fun with Crisp.
Weber always opened the show, giving fans some background on the game and setting the table for Crisp's analysis. A former NHL player and Stanley Cup-winning coach, Crisp was more comfortable in delivering commentary than he was in providing a detailed set-up of the contest.
That night, Weber started to talk when the camera came on, but then he began to have difficulties - at least it appeared so to Crisp.
"He starts coughing and choking - choking! - and he can't keep going," Crisp said. "He started to step away from the camera, so he's going off air. I'm grabbing for him, trying to grab his belt to bring him back because I'm panicking!
"I didn't know how to open. I can't start. The producer is yelling in my year, 'Crispy, take it, take it! Pete can't breathe. Take it!'"
The rattled Crisp turned back to the camera and gave it the old college try, even if he was a little bit off base on his details.
"I think I said, 'Well, tonight we're playing the Philadelphia Flyers, and uh, they have a whole load of injuries.' I'm just looking to find my way and I'm really sweating."
Until he happened to glance again at Weber off-stage.
"Pete is howling, just busting a gut he's laughing so hard," Crisp said. "It turns out we weren't on the air yet. We still had five minutes before we were going live, but I never paid attention to time. So he got me hook, line and sinker."
Weber reveled in his April Fool's Day surprise.
"Oh, the look on Crispy's face," Weber said. "The look on his face when I walked off camera fake-coughing was absolutely classic."
The two were virtually inseparable on Predators road trips, to the point that they would always sit directly next to one another on team flights - even if there was room to spread out on the spacious charter planes.

Players took to jokingly calling them Statler and Waldorf, the two crusty old Muppets characters who earned fame for their humorous heckling.
Crisp and Weber also did extensive publicity work for the Predators, especially in the early years, when the two would host "Hockey 101" sessions to help educate a non-traditional hockey market.
"We did caravans, business meetings, luncheons, everything," Crisp said. "It was funny because people would always request Pete and Terry. It was never just Pete and never just Terry. It was always, 'Can we have Pete and Terry?' That was fine by us. We always enjoyed it."
It was a dream combination for the Predators, who in those early years were trying to educate and expand their market.
"They were just the best," former Preds owner Craig Leipold said. "They were so involved in the community, and they both ended up loving Nashville more than they thought they ever would.
"We couldn't have hired two better ambassadors of the game of the way that they would talk to customers and fans. They were the best. They helped us a lot to be successful."