By Frank Sinatra, AAP Editor
“Nashville! Let me hear you roar!”
For fans of the Nashville Predators, that’s a familiar phrase uttered by their public address announcer. For many folks from Pennsauken, it’s a familiar voice who says it.
Paul McCann has been the public address announcer for the Nashville Predators for nine years. And while he’s lived in the Nashville area for over 26 years, he grew up on 46th St. in Pennsauken and is a member of Camden Catholic High School’s Class of 1979. Growing up in town, he has fond memories of swimming at the Pennsauken Pool, skating on a frozen Tippin’s Pond, and heading to the old Bean’s Bakery on Westfield before heading to school at Saint Cecilia’s.
“I have a lot of memories of Pennsauken,” says McCann. “It was a great place to grow up.”
And it was close to home where Paul first showed inklings of his future career. At age 6, he went to a Sixers game at the Spectrum. The public address announcer was the iconic Dave “The Zink” Zinkoff, known for his trademark calls such as, “Julius Irrrrrrrrrrrving.” During the game, Zinkoff made quite an impression on the young McCann.
“Apparently, I spent the next couple of months imitating Dave Zinkoff like crazy,” says McCann, who ultimately went on to do radio work and disc jockeying at nightclubs beginning when he was in high school.
When the Predators came to Nashville in 1998, McCann, who skipped school to head to the Flyers’ Stanley Cup Parade in 1975, became a season ticket holder almost immediately. And when his son started playing hockey locally, Paul brought his laptop along and did some announcing just for fun.
“All of a sudden, I got an opportunity to audition for the PA role right after the lockout season,” explains McCann. “I had been working a little bit on Predators radio as an analyst. Now I’m in my ninth season.”
Working for the Nashville Predators is a dream job for a hockey fanatic like McCann. “Having that connection to the National Hockey League is really fun and important. It also gives me a creative outlet to have a little fun and enjoy something I’ve been doing forever. It’s just a blast.”
“Playing with the crowd is honestly the most fun about this. We have a good time here,” adds McCann. “When there is a minute and three seconds left in a period, there’s a group in the crowd that will yell out, ‘Hey, Paul! How much time is left in the period?’ At that point, that gets me to the one minute warning, which is required by the NHL. I’ll say, ‘There’s one minute left in the period.’ And it’s kind of a rush when 17,000 people yell, ‘Thanks, Paul!’ That’s a lot of fun.”
In addition to his PA role, McCann is involved with Slap Shot Radio, a weekly radio show he co-hosts with Nashville Predators’ TV play-by-play man Pete Weber. The program focuses on the Nashville Predators and is syndicated in three states.
“We have a mission to educate and entertain,” explains McCann. “When we started the show seven years ago, Nashville was a pretty young hockey market. The education piece was very important. It’s come light years from where it was.”
As his work with the Predators is a part time job, McCann is also operations director at Artemetrx Specialty Drug Solutions. But for those looking to do public address announcing professionally, he offers the following advice. “Practice. Do it as many times as you can. Volunteer if you have to. Just get out there and do it.”
