Nashville, Tenn. — Remember your first time?

This city has dubbed itself Smashville. It’s kind of cute, don’t you think? Hockey is as fresh and exciting and sloppy here as an adolescent kiss.

Try to stay classy, Smashville.

I know it’s difficult.

For example: What was that elbow Nashville forward Ryan “The Ripper” Johansen delivered Thursday night to the head of Avalanche defenseman Tyson Barrie with three minutes, 30 seconds remaining in the second period of an NHL playoff game?

It was a blindside cheap shot, that’s what.

“It hurt,” said Barrie. He fell to the ice, then skated immediately to the Colorado bench, but did later return to the game.

After firing a puck at the net, Barrie never saw the hit coming. Let’s not mince words: The hit smelled worse than a catfish left to rot in the sun for three days. It looked like head-hunting by Johansen.

Ryan the Ripper should’ve been banished to the pit of misery faster than you can say “dilly, dilly.” But, inexplicably, the refs on the ice missed it.

“It looks like (Johansen) got some of his head, for sure,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said.

In a sport where the impact of concussions has been minimized for far too many years, what Johansen did cannot be excused. After one long, hard look at the videotape, if the league office doesn’t issue a suspension to Johansen, then any pretense for concern about player health is a joke, and Colorado has already been dismissed as nothing but a nuisance forbidden to bother the NHL’s new fun couple: The Preds and Smashville. Related Articles Kiszla: Hey, Fakers. The Nuggets just burst your bubble of invincibility with 114-106 victory

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On their first trip to the playoffs since 2014, the Avalanche has walked into Bridgestone Arena, been given a quarter and asked to leave, so the Predators and this city that adores them can get cozy on the couch.

Ooh. Ick.

Stay classy, Smashville.

The assignment for Colorado? Spoil the romance. “Our expectations are to come in here and win,” Bednar said prior to Game 1.

Well, that’s easier said than done. Nashville won 5-2. And Smashville roared approval.

As a matter of fact, anything Bednar tells the Avs in the House of Catfish will be hard to hear above the unrelenting din of more than 17,000 fans howling at the moon. This is the “toughest building” in the NHL, claims Avalanche goalie Jonathan Bernier.

In Smashville, the Predators issue a survival kit to media visiting their ear-splittingly loud arena. The contents include: Advil? Check. Ear plugs? Check. Peppermint Mocha Liqueur? Check.

The city of Nashville is one of America’s greatest success stories of the past 50 years. I lived in this sleepy little Music City as a teenager in the 1970s, and if you had told me way back then the NFL, NHL and millennials were destined to flock here, I would have spit out my Goo Goo Cluster in a fit of laughter.

In more ways than one, the Nashvegas of 2018 evokes the vibe of Denver during the mid-90s. Newly hip. The mellow not yet harshed by bumper-to-bumper traffic. Also: Feeling a little entitled, as if the only way that shiny new truck in the garage could look better is by throwing the Stanley Cup in the back and driving it around town.

The gritty little Avs, who didn’t slip into the playoffs until the final game of the regular season, are just happy to be here, back for a sweet, brief whiff of the postseason. Right?

“Past few years, you don’t really know when you’ll make it again. Didn’t expect to make it this year,” said Nathan MacKinnon, playing the underdog role to the hilt. And then this: “There’s no pressure on us.”

The Predators are good. Really skilled. Really fast. Their crowd is really loud. And obnoxiously proud.

Every time a puck got behind Colorado’s goaltender for a score, Nashville fans roared with the same choreographed chant: “Bernier, Bernier, Bernier. You suck! All your fault. All your fault. All your fault.”

It was kinda cute, in an innocent, adolescent kind of way.

Of course, in the House of Catfish, they cheer for anything that wears yellow, even when Johansen delivers a cowardly cheap shot to the head of a defenseless foe.