Josh Cooper

jcooper2@tennessean.com

Good Monday everyone. Hope you all had a great weekend. I'm still recovering from my ALS Ice Bucket Challenge,

Some All-Star Game news ... sort of. I asked the NHL when they will have announcements on the games. The Predators and city of Nashville put in bids for 2016-19. A league spokesman responded in an email, saying, "I'm told we are in the final stages of reviewing bids. And that we typically announce 12-18 months out."

What can we parse from this statement? If Nashville is in the running for the 2016 game, then an announcement could come sooner than later -- I'm hearing late September is the likeliest possibility from multiple sources.

If Nashville got pushed back, it could be somewhat longer.

"We are working through the city portion of the (request for proposal) and we are taking the lead from the Predators," Nashville Visitors and Convention Corporation CEO Butch Spyridon told The Tennessean in an emailed statement. Spyridon declined the opportunity to be interviewed through a spokeswoman.

Expect the city of Nashville to get one of those four games. It has yet to host one -- the major issue in the past being lack of convention space. Now it has the space with the Music City Center. It's more a scenario of 'when' rather than 'if' at this point.