 The History of the Columbus Blue Jackets: Road to the NHL Part 1
The History of the Blue Jackets: Road to the NHL Part 1 - (Disclaimer: This summary is for educational purposes only, and does not reflect the views of the organization, or the NHL. In some parts, personal opinion was used in place of plain old boring facts)
The seeds of what would become the Columbus Blue Jacket franchise were planted late in 1996, when a partnership of investors put in an application to the NHL front office for a franchise in Ohio. This application, for those of you wanting to start your own NHL franchise, came with a $100K application fee.
But of course, before you can play in the NHL you need to have an Arena. The NHL really frowns upon the use of large ponds and frozen lakes for obvious comfort and safety reasons, so by mid 1997 plans were in place to build the Nationwide Arena. Seeing that Ohio really meant business and relieved that no games would be played upon a frozen pond, the NHL went ahead and awarded Columbus a Franchise that year. A few other franchises were also allowed to enter at that time. So along with mighty Columbus, such lesser places as Atlanta, Minnesota, and Nashville were awarded franchises. As you can see, two of those cities had been crying about their lost teams for years, so the move to have them enter the league was really done out of extreme pity, and little else.
Of course not wanting to play in a league with white blank shirts, a new name and logo had to be conjured up. Officially the team went with Blue Jackets. On the record, they say it was because of "patriotism, pride and the rich Civil War history in the state of Ohio and, city of Columbus," at least according to the franchise. Un-officially, it is said the owners wanted the name to include the color blue.
So, happy to have a name and a color on their plain white jersey's, the franchise went ahead with building the NationWide Arena in 1998. Some neat marketing schemes later, and after adding the necessary front office brass, the team got themselves a primary affiliate in the minor leagues. This minor league affiliate was/is the Syracuse Crunch. Then, to close out 1999, the franchise unveiled its official Home and Away jerseys. Hungry for anything hockey after 3 years of this ordeal, 4,000 Columbus fans attended the ceremonies. Notably absent from the ceremony was yours truly, who was at the time no where near Ohio and hoping that the Boston Bruins would recapture their past glory.
(to be continued)
Last edited by Gotham Dark Knight : 03-27-2006 at 07:01 PM.
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03-27-2006, 01:00 PM
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