The Morning After the Big Tweetup

Nashville's first opening night NHL Tweetup was a huge success with over 100 local tweeters attending, most of which from the @predfans @ReTweetBot group. Thanks to @Stackiii (George Scoville), @AmyPredsfan (Amy Dawson), @mollypearson (Molly Pearson), @forechecker (Dirk Hoag), The Closing Bell Wall Street Pub, and all the others involved for pulling this event together on short notice. Everything from custom name tags to all the prize giveaways, was first class and has everyone looking forward to the next Tweetup event (can you say Draft party?). Everyone should tweet the above folks and thank them for their efforts.

Thanks also to @dani3boyz, @umassdilo, @hockeyskates, and @goaliegirl for getting the whole thing rolling on the national level. Also thanks to @Commish_Gary for opening the Tweetups with a brief message that said, "I am so pleased to welcome you all to the first ever #NHLTweetup! Enjoy the games!"

We would also like to thank all those that participated on air with us on our first live remote broacast of POTG Radio. We initially lost our internet signal (probably our fault for moving outside) so the first 15 minutes of the podcast is a combination of stalling, dead air and the muffled panic of initially blaming BlogTalkRadio (frequent trouble producers) to getting the matter resolved and moving forward for 45 minutes of the show.

If you check it out on podcast, click over about 1/4 the way through and listen from there. Guests included event organizers George Scovill and Amy Dawson, Dirk Hoag from On the Forecheck, Mark Willoughby from The View From 111, Jeremy Gover and Codey Holland from Section 303, and Paul Nicholson, creator of @Predfans and Geek Thoughts. Several others agreed to participate but were victims of our technical goofs. Thanks to all that participated in our first experience moving out of the living room and into the real world. Many lessons were learned and we will be much better prepared next time we leave the house for a show.

We would also like to thank all the readers and listeners that introduced themselves to us. Sometimes writing and doing the podcast seems like a thankless endeavor but seeing that folks enjoy the stuff we do makes it worth every minute of it.

Several folks have posted pictures and stories from the Nashville event as well as others around the country. Here are some links. National pictures including Nashville, LoudestNoise Nashville Pics, AJ's Nashville Pics, and a bunch by AmyPredsfan on her Facebook page. Here are some other wrap ups of the event by @Karpo, Forechecker, and Mark from The View from 111 on Forechecker's site. I'm sure there are more and I will add links here as I see them.

As far as the opening night action, I actually saw very little which was not surprising. After getting only one of three Eastern Conference games right, I was ready to trash my bracket but I was somewhat consoled with Vancouver holding off the Blues.

One thing the Tweetup did for me was to bring a formal end to this year's Predators season. Driving home last night, I realized that for the first time since September, there was not a next game or next event to actually attend. While we plan to continue onward with our Predators and NHL Playoff coverage and continue POTG Radio on Monday nights, the thrill of having the "next game" to attend is on hold for another five months. So how do you treat withdrawal symptoms? Maybe it's time to put out the garden and cut the grass. Bummer!

High tech BlogTalkRadio interview with George Scoville and Jackson and I on the porch at the Closing Bell

As always, more later as the day progresses.

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass

Later Additions

@karpo points out a ZDNet article on the Tweeetups.

@Forchecker also points out that the HNIC staff gets Twitter.

Another great Morning Skate at the RedLightDistrict. While the rest of us partied last night, Ryan was busy getting today's analysis ready for us.

Should Pred fans be worried about the shake-up in Minnesota asks Brandon Felder? Forechecker writes on the subject.

Here's another Tweetup story from St John in Canada. Here's a video from the Shark Club in Vancouver (isn't that a bit odd? Should be Canuck Club, right?). They had chicken nuggets at the NHL Store Tweetup per MediaPost

Here's a story from @goaliegirl one of the originators of the NHLTweetup Nationwide and the site administrator for the web site.

Since this is a big Twitter topic day, it appears Twitter will cease to exist as we know it tomorrow when Oprah does her first tweet on her show which will cause millions of her followers to flood the bandwidth with mindless psycho-babble like she produces.

Again a bit off topic, but the NFL has big Social Media plans for it's draft next weekend.

Here is the granddaddy of all links to the NHL Tweetup stories and pictures.