Linden Palmer helped elevate the Blue Raiders into a national contender, but behind the captain stood a family that became inseparable from the program’s rise.
As a wide-eyed 4-year-old, Linden Palmer remembers the first time he watched the Nashville Predators. Sitting in the navy seats at Bridgestone Arena with his father, one player caught his eye.
He watched Jordin Tootoo, a short, stout “battering ram” on skates, who specialized in heavy body checking and fighting to shift momentum. He coined the term “Smashville” for generations of Preds fans. On that day, as he did many times in his career, Tootoo dropped the gloves.
“I want to say he got in a fight that game, and I thought it was super cool,” Palmer said, laughing. “I don’t know how a four-year-old looks at a fight and is like, ‘Yeah, I want to do that.’”
The lights, the speed, the sound of skates carving into the ice — Linden Palmer asked his dad, Brady Palmer, if he could play hockey. Brady Palmer said “yes,” sparking a two-decade career on the ice.
“We went to that game, and something in his brain just rewired,” Brady Palmer said. “He [Linden] became absolutely obsessed with hockey.”
Since his first Predators game nearly two decades ago, Linden Palmer has become synonymous with the rise of Middle Tennessee club hockey. In his five-year career with the Blue Raiders, Linden Palmer served as club president and team captain, leading MTSU to a College Hockey South conference championship and two national tournament berths.
Linden Palmer’s path to becoming a stalwart of Middle Tennessee club hockey was never a solo effort. Behind every practice, road trip and late-night meal stood a family deeply ingrained in the program. Linden’s father called games from the broadcast booth, and his mother, Brooke Palmer, supported the team as a constant presence off the ice.
“It was never an issue of what made us get involved — we were just going to be involved regardless,” Brady Palmer said. “That’s just how we’re wired.”
Long before Linden Palmer laced up the skates, Brooke Palmer watched from the living room couch as he slid with socks on the laminate floor of the family’s suburban home, mimicking players skating on the ice.
From that point forward, September to March for the next 14 years, belonged to one thing and one thing only — hockey. But the version of Linden Palmer that transformed MTSU club hockey didn’t emerge overnight.
Following house and travel hockey, Linden Palmer signed up for the Nashville Jr. Predators, a youth hockey program. Among many goals and memories, Linden Palmer competed in the International Silver Stick, a recognized tournament of the International Ice Hockey Federation.
Linden Palmer’s time with the Jr. Predators came to an abrupt pause as a coaching conflict led him to step away from the game entirely, a decision Linden Palmer still thinks about.
“If I could redo one thing … it would be not taking that year off,” Linden Palmer said. “I kind of just lost it all.”
After a summer of offseason workouts after the missed season, a 15-year-old Linden Palmer missed the Jr. Predators roster, leading him to join the Nashville Flyers organization. By the end of his junior career, Linden Palmer committed to MTSU, where he would spend the rest of his playing days.
The decision came down to two things: Staying home and being part of a program he believed he could help build.
“I’ve always enjoyed rebuilding teams on Madden and NHL and all the sports games,” Linden Palmer said. “So I thought that this would be a little piece of that, and my dream job is to be a general manager of either a football or hockey team.”
That mindset carried Linden Palmer into Middle Tennessee, where he stepped into a program still carving out its identity in college hockey.
Linden Palmer joined the MTSU hockey club during his freshman year in 2021 and quickly found his place on the team. In his freshman season, Linden Palmer led the Blue Raiders with 20 goals and 19 assists in only 20 games played. In Palmer’s freshman campaign, Middle Tennessee won 10 games.
During Linden Palmer’s sophomore year, MTSU won four games, but the team continued to grow.
As Linden Palmer stepped into the role of club president his junior year, he rebranded the Blue Raiders, including new jerseys and logos. Alongside a new look, Linden Palmer focused on recruiting local talent. One of the blueprints for recruiting was Hendersonville-Station Camp-Beech product Matthew Siciliano, who joined the team alongside Palmer in 2021.
“Linden was a bit of a solo act by necessity, and I was just there to support him as much as I could,” Siciliano said. “But his drive and passion are what brought a lot of us along with him.”
Along with head coach JJ Murray and a refreshed roster filled with talent, the Blue Raiders flipped the club hockey world on its head as Middle Tennessee defeated the University of Tampa in the College Hockey South championship to clinch the club’s first trophy in 2025.
“That conference championship, that’s the jewel in his crown,” Brady Palmer said.
After the 2025 season, the Blue Raiders finished in the AAU hockey Frozen Four, the final four teams in AAU Division III. Middle Tennessee followed the breakthrough campaign with the best season in program history, including 16 consecutive weeks at No.1 in the American Collegiate Hockey Association and a berth in the ACHA Division III national tournament.
Brady Palmer tracked every minute on the ice from behind the microphone. Meanwhile, Brooke Palmer made sure each Blue Raider had a meal waiting for them after each game.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, fans couldn’t attend games. So, Brady Palmer began livestreaming MTSU contests on Penalty Box Radio, keeping parents involved with the team from their living rooms.
Outside of the typical game broadcasts, Brady Palmer interviewed players throughout the season, highlighting stories across Middle Tennessee’s roster. Whether it was laughing about favorite team memories or discussing life away from the rink, he focused on capturing the human aspect of the fastest game on ice.
“I try to paint a picture, not just of what’s happening on the ice, but what’s happening around the team,” Brady Palmer said.
While Brady Palmer told the story of the Blue Raiders, Brooke Palmer helped sustain it. With games, especially away from home, not starting until after 8 p.m., the options for postgame meals were always sparse.
After the first away series the Palmers attended, Brooke Palmer started providing meals such as Jersey Mike’s catering boxes or pizza at the hotel after a game.
“That was my thing,” Brooke Palmer said. “I don’t like anybody being hungry.”
That seemingly small act snowballed, as players began telling their parents about the Palmers’ generosity, and many other families began donating money to support the cause.
“Parents started stepping up and said, ‘We want to buy them Chick-fil-A, or we want to buy pizza for the team,’” Brady Palmer said.
The Palmers’ involvement followed Linden Palmer throughout his career with MTSU. Turning the game into a shared effort that extended far beyond the ice.
As Linden Palmer’s final season came to a close, the Blue Raiders played their last regular season game against Vanderbilt University inside Bridgestone Arena. In the same arena where Linden first fell in love with hockey, he played his last “home” game for MTSU, this time taking the ice brandishing the captain’s “C” on his chest.
The same arena that bred Palmer’s love for the game became the stage for his final home game for MTSU — this time, not as a fan, but as the captain, leading the program he helped build.
“I remember walking out, and I looked in the corner of my eye because I didn’t really want to see how many people were there, but I did,” Linden Palmer said.
The Blue Raiders would go on to leave the home of “Smashville” with a win over the Commodores. For a night, all the late-night meetings, recruiting visits and 6 a.m. practices culminated in a milestone for the program.
But the season’s final chapter wasn’t written on Broadway.
In the ACHA national tournament, Middle Tennessee’s run fell short of a national championship, closing out a historic season. The loss marked a quiet finish in a season that was anything but — one that included a College Hockey South Veteran’s Cup, numerous days ranked nationally and an established program among the best of the South.
And for Linden Palmer, that difference meant more than a final score ever could.
He said, “I wouldn’t give those four or five years playing for MTSU up for the world, that was the most fun hockey I’ve ever played.”
To contact the sports editor, email [email protected].
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