Blue Jackets 2 Islanders 0

NHL Hockey
Home Team: Columbus Blue Jackets
Visiting Team: New York Islanders
Venue: Nationwide Arena (Section C4)
Game Time: 7:00 p.m.

Fellow Attendees: Brandi, Chris, Spencer

Official Recap

Ten years later and I finally made it to a second Blue Jackets game. We should do this more often, because it's really fun. I don't love hockey the way I do football and baseball, or even basketball (I haven't made it to an OSU hoops game since we've been in Columbus), but I went to a ton of local games when I was a kid, and being in the arena is great.

And this was the way to do it. Our friend Chris works for one of the Blue Jackets' major sponsors, and he was able to get tickets in the new Diamond Cellar Club area. My friends...this is the way to go. Besides the price of admission, a drawback of actually going to sporting events is the price of concessions—but not tonight! In the Diamond Cellar Club, food is included (and it was quite a spread—I've never gone to a game and eaten spaghetti and meatballs before, but I did tonight), and a selection of beer and wine is included as well. And the seats were great, too, just off of center ice, pretty much at one of the blue lines.

It was a good game. The season is young (this was just the ninth game), and after a poor season last year and a tumultuous offseason that included a tragic accident that killed one of their star players, Johnny Gaudreau, it's hard to know what to expect from them this year. I'm not going to pretend that I know much about hockey and have anything insightful to say, but they definitely played hard. I can say that I was really impressed with the goalie, Elvis Merzlikins, who made some truly incredible saves on his way to a shutout.

I'm guessing it won't be ten years again before we make it to our next game.

Blackhawks 4 Blue Jackets 3

NHL Hockey
Home Team: Columbus Blue Jackets
Visiting Team: Chicago Blackhawks
Venue: Nationwide Arena (Section 205)
Game Time: 7:00 p.m.
Fellow Attendees: Brandi, Shawn (sort of)
Official Recap

When I think of my time as a sports fan, I mostly trace it back to when I was about nine years old and started getting into baseball; my fandom has expanded since then to include both football and basketball. In truth, though, it goes back further than that. When I was a kid, there was a semi-pro hockey team called the Troy Sabres (later to become the Miami Valley Sabres) that played in my hometown, and I went to most of the home games with my Uncle Clarence and Aunt Lou and my cousin Rachel. Man, I loved going to those games. Even now, all these years later, I can still name several players from those teams, and (renovations aside), I could walk into Hobart Arena right now and walk directly to the seats Rachel and I always used to sit in. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if there are still Sabres souvenirs (pucks, buttons, programs, etc.) floating around somewhere at my parents house.

Unfortunately, the Sabres dissolved after the 1988-89 season, and without a team to go see each weekend, my interest in hockey waned. I went to a few games over the years, for the ECHL Dayton Bombers (now defunct as well), the BGSU Falcons when I was in school there, and the Detroit Red Wings when I lived in the Toledo area, but none of them captured my attention the way the Sabres did when I was a kid (although I do wish now that I had gone to more BG games when I had the opportunity).

So that's where I've stood on hockey for a long time. Anytime I thought about it, I had a ton of residual affection from such great times as a kid, but no current connection. Then Brandi and I moved to Columbus a couple of months ago, which of course is where Ohio State was located. I have a well-known ambivalence toward the Buckeyes, so, looking for another sports-related way to embrace our new locale, I turned to the Blue Jackets. Brandi went with me to a Red Wings playoff game several years ago and had a blast, so it was easy to sell her on the idea. We caught a couple of their games on TV, and when we found out our buddy Shawn, a big Blackhawks fan, was coming into town for this game, we decided to grab some tickets and check it out as well.

And boy, did we have fun. The atmosphere was awesome. We were pretty high up but had a great view of the ice. The only thing that sucked, of course, was that the Blue Jackets lost. And actually, not just that they lost, but the way that they lost--just as it looked like we were in for some overtime action, the Blackhawks put the puck in the net with just 3.9 seconds left to win 4-3. It was rough, after such a great and exciting game, to watch them lose like that with almost no chance to come back and tie it up before the clock ran down.

Other than that, it was a blast. There was a ton of action in the game, and even a little bit of fighting (which is what Brandi likes best). The Jackets were up 2-1 at that point, and I was just about to text Shawn that his guy got beat up when the Blackhawks scored to tie it up. I couldn't exactly give crap about it at that point. Brandi and I even managed to make it to a local hotspot, the Three-Legged Mare, just ahead of the rush and in time to score a couple of seats at the bar. We had a couple of drinks there and a couple more at the piano bar next door before catching a cab home and calling it a night.

So now I've got a team in Columbus I can cheer for. Now that I've been to a home game, I finally feel like a Columbus resident.