How a Predators fan turned catfish into 'instrument of crime' at Stanley Cup Final

How do you smuggle a catfish into PPG Paints Arena?

Spray it down with Old Spice. Run it over with a pickup truck several times. Vacuum seal it, and stuff it down your pants.

This was the protocol followed by Jacob Deveral Waddell as he brought a Nashville Predators fan tradition to Pittsburgh for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.

During the second period, he hurled a catfish on to the ice from the aisle between sections 121 and 122.

He expected to be caught. He expected to get kicked out of the game.

He didn't care.

“I would do it a thousand more times,” Waddell, 36, of Nolensville, Tenn., told The Midday 180 radio show on 104.5 FM on Tuesday, calling himself a “dumb redneck with a bad idea.”

What he didn't expect was misdemeanor charges of “possessing instruments of crime” and “disrupting meetings and processions.”

After security and police questioned him in a detaining room, he said an officer told him to expect a ticket in the mail for a disorderly conduct citation.

“Now they come up with other trumped-up charges, which are BS,” he said. “I am just stubborn enough, as you can probably tell by strapping a catfish to my crotch, to go back up there and fight it.”

Even the mayor of Nashville couldn't steer clear of the fish fray.

Asked about the charges against Waddell, Nashville Mayor Megan Barry said it would be inappropriate for her to intervene, “let alone ask the mayor of Pittsburgh to do the same.”

But, “we would hope that in the spirit of good sportsmanship that any charges for throwing a catfish onto the ice would be quickly dismissed,” she said in a statement emailed to the Trib.

Waddell said he understood the possibility of a fine. But, instrument of crime?

“I mean, a catfish isn't an instrument of whatever-the-hell-they're-saying-it-was, and I didn't disrupt a meeting,” he said. “It was an athletic event.”

Waddell told police he obtained the catfish in Tennessee and placed it on ice before the trip to Pittsburgh. On game night, he placed the vacuum-sealed fish inside his compression shorts to sneak it into PPG Paints Arena.

He then went into an arena bathroom and wrapped the fish in a free Penguins T-shirt and rally towel before hurling it on to the ice from Section 122, according to a police criminal complaint.

Waddell concocted the idea as part of a Memorial Day weekend trip to see his in-laws, who live about 68 miles away from Pittsburgh in Boardman, Ohio.

It was quite a plan: even before dousing it in Old Spice, he cut the flattened catfish's spine out.

And he found an unlikely hiding spot.

“I had a pair of underwear on, I had compression shorts on and I slid it right between the two and walked right in,” he told the radio station.

He snuck down into the lower level from upper-level seats (he paid $350), noting that nobody checked his ticket.

Then he took out the fish and made the toss, fully anticipating to be booted as he “high-tailed it” up the steps.

“I didn't stop smiling,” he said as security found him and escorted him out of the section.

“You can hear the crowd getting restless: ‘Hillbilly, redneck,' all this other stuff they're yelling at me. They're calling me stuff I should be called,” he said. “They're getting more aggressive in their tone. If it wasn't one versus 10,000, I wouldn't have been uncomfortable, but I was kind of hoping the security guards would get us on out of there.”

The detaining room was full of “people in suits everywhere.”

“They're all staring at me, trying to make it real serious,” he said. “I know nothing's gonna happen seriously.”

In a statement released late Tuesday afternoon, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said he understood the concern of Nashville's mayor.

“From my perch, I agree with Mayor Barry that we shouldn't be baited into interfering with this fish tale,” he said. “But if the charges eventually make their way to a judge, I hope the predatory catfish hurler who got the hook last night is simply sentenced to community service, perhaps cleaning fish at Wholey's.”

Ben Schmitt is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-320-7991, bschmitt@tribweb.com or via Twitter at @Bencschmitt.