‘More than a hockey game’: 25 years later, the Blue Jackets’ debut still resonates

COLUMBUS, Ohio — It was only a six-ounce chunk of vulcanized rubber that hit Nationwide Arena’s ice on Oct. 7, 2000, but it landed like a meteor.

The initial blast was at 7:56 p.m. At that moment, the Columbus Blue Jackets joined the NHL, and the city of Columbus stepped into a different cultural stratosphere after years of ignominy as the country’s largest city without major-league sports.

Most of the aftershocks are still being felt today.

The Blue Jackets, despite only sporadic bursts of moderate success and no Stanley Cup playoff runs beyond the second round, have built one of the most loyal and passionate fan bases in the league. The neighborhood anchored by Nationwide Arena has become more than the architects ever imagined. Youth and recreational hockey in central Ohio is the envy of other U.S. regions.

There has been professional hockey in Columbus since the 1960s. But the Blue Jackets have established a place in the local landscape that has, to many, transformed the city, and it began 25 years ago Tuesday, when Robert Kron moved slowly into the faceoff circle with 18,136-plus fans standing in anticipation.

The Blue Jackets have had better seasons than their inaugural campaign, certainly, but the club that president and general manager Doug MacLean assembled played with a spirit, a ferocity and a togetherness that not only endeared them to fans immediately but sparked a love affair between hockey and a sprawling city that has never stopped growing.

“It was an amazing moment,” inaugural Blue Jackets coach Dave King told The Athletic last week. “I can remember it clear as a bell. Everybody was standing. You could hardly wait for the puck to hit the ice. I remember being on the bench there thinking, ‘Let’s get going.’

“Columbus was happy to have us, but we were the lucky ones. A lot of our fans didn’t have a background in hockey, but they could recognize effort, and that was a key to us getting really good support. The guys worked their tails off.”

The buildup

MacLean and his staff — assistant GM Jim Clark, pro scout Bob Strumm, and amateur scout Don Boyd — spent the previous season scouring the world, literally, for players.

This was the third wave of expansion in three seasons, so NHL rosters were fairly picked over, and the rules of expansion back then made it dramatically more difficult to build competitive teams than, say, Vegas or Seattle faced in recent years.

The Jackets spent on two free agents: defenseman Lyle Odelein, who was named captain, and goaltender Ron Tugnutt, who became the franchise’s first folk hero. They mined the expansion draft for players who became significant pieces, such as Geoff Sanderson, Tyler Wright, Steve Heinze, Mattias Timander and Kron. And they lured players back from Europe who hadn’t found success in their first North American attempts. They spent the organization’s first draft pick on Rostislav Klesla, an 18-year-old from Czechia.

They had a whopping 72 players at training camp, and on the first day, morning practice stopped several times to either break up fights or let them play out. At one point, MacLean marched down from his seat in the stands, grabbed a stick on the bench and began banging it on the boards until the fight stopped.

“There was a lot of energy in that rink,” said right wing Kevin Dineen.

King, the coach, was professorial in every way. He may have been more of a teacher than a motivator, but the Blue Jackets didn’t need a push.

“A lot of these guys had been in pro hockey for eight or nine years and had never had a shot,” King said. “Some of them had a cup of coffee. But this was their chance. They knew it and we (as coaches) knew it, so we really didn’t have to play those cards too much. These guys were driven.”

Blue Jackets players had been in town a few weeks ahead of training camp, but they really didn’t know Columbus as a city or a hockey market. Training camp was like most others in the NHL, but as the night of the franchise opener drew near, the mood changed among the players.

Strangely, it felt like pressure, Tugnutt said.

“There was excitement, but there was also a little bit of … ‘How’s this going to go?’” Tugnutt said. “What’s it going to be like that first time you walk out in front of the fans? We really didn’t know what to expect, but that went away pretty fast that first night.

“The crowd was so excited. We could tell it in warmups, and then we got back into the room before the game and that’s how we were talking. This was our first impression. Let’s show them what they’re going to see all year, and hopefully they’re going to like it.”

King said telling the healthy scratches they weren’t going to play was especially difficult. That included defenseman Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre, now a broadcaster with the club. Meanwhile, Espen Knutsen, who became their top center, was out with a fractured finger.

“It’s never easy,” King said. “Everybody wanted in on this game, right?”

What a night

Puck drop between the Blue Jackets and Chicago Blackhawks was set for 7:30 p.m., a half hour later than typical. The pregame ceremonies, hosted by legendary broadcaster Mike “Doc” Emrick, went long, too. It was nearly 8 p.m. when the centers lined up.

Kron took the draw, flanked by Sanderson on his left and Heinze to his right. The top defensive pair was Odelein and Timander, with Tugnutt the backstop. Kron won the puck back to Odelein, who swatted it over Timander. The Blue Jackets were born.

Many in the arena that night never expected to see major-league sports in Columbus. Cell phones were fairly rare back then, but the building sparkled with flashes going off as play got started.

“The volume in that building leading up to the faceoff … I mean, it was every bit like a playoff game,” Tugnutt said. “We were all excited, but the crowd, the sound of it, just had this different feel to it, like this was something more than a hockey game to a lot of people.

“I remember taking a second to look up and look around and go, ‘Well, geez. This is going to be something, isn’t it? What a building.’”

It got louder at 7:34 of the first period.

Kevyn Adams carried the puck high around the right circle, then sent a backhand pass across to Krzysztof Oliwa in the left circle. Oliwa shoveled the puck on net and Bruce Gardiner — forever the answer to a Columbus trivia question — put it behind Blackhawks goaltender Jocelyn Thibault.

The place went delirious when the Jackets scored two more goals in less than two minutes to make it 3-0. David Vyborny scored with helpers from Serge Aubin and Wright, while Heinze made it 3-0 at 9:20 with assists from Sanderson and Odelein.

One fan in the upper reaches of the arena stood backward on his chair to bark at members of the media who had predicted a long year of struggles and droughts for the first-year Blue Jackets. There was no cannon then in Nationwide Arena, but you couldn’t have heard it anyway.

“That was something,” Tugnutt said. “Can only imagine what Chicago was thinking, but they got it together, right?”

The Blackhawks, who had lost their season opener two days earlier, did manage to rally. They tied the score with three goals in the second period and won going away with two goals in the third. Reto Von Arx, another trivia answer, scored the first goal against the Blue Jackets at 6:10 of the second period.

Tugnutt stopped 20 of 25 shots. Jamie Pushor and Oliwa had fighting majors, while Wright — on his way to being the Blue Jackets’ first crowd favorite — had a minor for roughing.

The Blue Jackets fan who was chirping the press box earlier in the night? He turned around at the final buzzer for a handshake and an apology. He was carried away by the moment, which was entirely understandable.

“To see a town embrace a team like that, and to be on the ground floor with it, was a pretty cool thing,” Dineen said.

A rousing campaign

The Blue Jackets sold more than 12,000 season tickets before their first season, but they sold thousands of fans on their game that night and for the rest of the season.

They finished 28-39-15, a 71-point season that at the time was the second-highest point total for an expansion club in league history. They finished tied with Chicago and ahead of Minnesota and Anaheim in the Western Conference, and ahead of Montreal, Florida, Atlanta, Tampa Bay and the New York Islanders in the overall standings.

And they got better as the season moved along and an identity formed, as they went 21-21-8-5 in the final 45 games, including a 4-0-2-2 stretch in January and February. Tellingly, they sold out 26 of their 41 home games, including the final 14.

“We realized what we were,” Tugnutt said. “We had to change our mindset — it’s all about winning and it has to be low-scoring for us to have success. We tried to win games 2-1, and it was a complete turnaround.

“There were games where I’d say, ‘We’re going to be outmatched tonight, and I have to be at my best to give us a chance. But I also knew these guys had my back. We got a lot closer as a team as we went along, and Kinger … he was the perfect coach for that team.”

Sanderson became the club’s top scorer and just the third player in the modern wave of expansion (since 1991-92) to score 30 goals. Knutsen, a sublime playmaker, finished with 42 assists. Wright became the embodiment of the Blue Jackets’ playing style: scrappy, fearless, indefatigable.

King could talk about those players and that Blue Jackets’ season for hours. Columbus had a payroll of just $18.6 million that first season. This was before the NHL adopted a salary cap, so big-market teams such as Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, New York and Los Angeles were routinely close to $100 million or more.

But the Blue Jackets held their own.

“There’s a tendency to always remember the teams that won championships or went a long way in the playoffs,” King said. “But I have to be honest with you, working with those players … to watch them play so hard, every night, taking really good teams to the brink… As a coach, you remember the teams that gave you the most. And that team … I’ve had a lot of teams, but that one gave an awful lot.”

It was distinct in another way, too.

“Every season there’s a point where you have to bottom-line it with guys,” King said. “You have to ask for more, you have to scold them a bit because they’re not giving you as much as they can.

“That never happened with the Blue Jackets of 2000-01. Not once were we forced, as a coaching staff, to hold court and say, ‘What’s going on here?’ It never happened. And that was a special situation for a coach.”

The Blue Jackets picked up their first victory on Oct. 12 in Calgary, against King’s former club. The first home win didn’t occur until Oct. 27 vs. Washington.

There were moments that changed the course of the franchise, too.

Tugnutt struggled in the first two months of the season before suffering a broken bone in one of his hands. He was out of the lineup for two weeks, and King put him to work while he was too injured to play. “A two-week boot camp,” Tugnutt called it. “I hated it.”

But when he came back…

“I was on fire,” Tugnutt said. “I came out of that feeling like the fastest goalie in the world. I told myself, “I have to stay on top of this.’ My conditioning went through the roof after that.”

By late January, Oliwa had fallen out of favor with the Blue Jackets and was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Needing a tough guy, the Jackets reached into their minor leagues to sign Jody Shelley to an NHL contract. Shelley became one of the most popular players in franchise history, and still works for the club as an ambassador and broadcaster.

Memories linger

Tugnutt’s contract included three bonuses should he win 20 or more games, have a save percentage above .915 and a goals-against average below 2.50. When the regular-season finale arrived, he had achieved all three, and some wondered if he’d risk the final two playing that last game.

“That was the conversation. ‘If we get blown out or if I get pulled early, those bonuses … ya know,’” Tugnutt said. “But I definitely wanted to play in that game. For sure. It wasn’t even a thought. And then (public relations VP) Todd Sharrock told me that I was one win away from the expansion record (22) for a goalie. Well, let’s go.”

Tugnutt finished 22-25-5 with a .917 and 2.44. MacLean came into the dressing room the day after the season to make a delivery to Tugnutt.

“It was my bonuses check,” Tugnutt said. “He was (like), ‘I don’t say this often, but you earned it.’ Classic Doug, right? It felt like a great achievement for me, and for him to do that meant a lot.”

The Blue Jackets won the final game of the season 4-3 in overtime on Wright’s goal. After starting the season with a loss to the Blackhawks, they ended it with a win over Chicago to tie them in the standings.

At the trade deadline, MacLean made a series of trades, as was always the plan. Adams was traded to Florida for Ray Whitney. Heinze was traded to Buffalo and František Kučera to Pittsburgh for draft picks. Already, the inaugural team was breaking up.

Adams is now the GM in Buffalo. Sanderson (New Jersey), Wright (Carolina), Kron (Seattle) and Pushor (Tampa Bay) are all working for NHL clubs, too. Heinze owns and operates a doggy daycare in Santa Barbara, Calif. Backup goaltender Marc Denis is a national broadcaster in Canada. Gardiner was a longtime police constable in Barrie, Ontario. Knutsen, Aubin and defenseman Petteri Nummelin have all had coaching careers in Europe.

“Every once in a while something will pop up and I’ll see one of those guys,” Tugnutt said. “And I smile, ya know. I just smile.

“We knew the second year was going to be harder. Expectations were higher. There’d be changes. The first year is always special. I felt like Columbus was more of a hockey town, and I loved it. It seemed like the right fit and the right place to be for hockey.”

The Blue Jackets are celebrating 25 years on the ice this season, and they’ll be celebrating the inaugural team throughout the campaign. On Oct. 18, King, Tugnutt, Dineen, Klesla and Grand-Pierre will be honored before the Jackets play the Tampa Bay Lightning.

“Kinger’s gonna be bossing us all around again, isn’t he?” said Dineen, who has been coach of two NHL clubs (Florida, Chicago) and three AHL clubs since he retired as a player. On the night he decided to retire after a game early in the 2002-03 season, he came back onto the ice, his daughter in his arms, to take one last lap around an empty rink.

“Nobody knew what to expect there in Columbus,” he said. “I’d done my homework, so I probably knew a little more than some of the guys. But … we were all blown away, right?

“Special place. I still go back. There’s been a lot of years now for all of us. But yeah, special year. A real bond was formed with the fans there, and I still get reminded of that today. It meant a lot to people. And that’s why it meant a lot to us, too, as players. Great times.”