Columbus Blue Jackets need new voices, better culture: Arace
A tip of the kepi to Jeff Rimer, the television voice of the Blue Jackets for 20 years who wrapped his broadcasting career with CBJ telecast No. 2,548 Tuesday night. His season-long farewell tour ended shortly after a jumbotron video tribute and a standing ovation in the middle of the third period at Nationwide Arena. The Jackets beat the Carolina Hurricanes 6-3 before a giddy crowd of 17,289.
Rimer had a great run, but it was time. The TV play-by-play man holds open the front door to the franchise and a new face, a new voice of welcome, is something this franchise needs. The Jackets should pay what it takes to find somebody great to electrify the telecast and fire the imagination of the next generation.
The organization is screaming for a rebranding, beginning with the logo. The majority owner, John P. McConnell, believes in hiring good people and leaving them alone to do their jobs. That’s fine. But what is the measuring stick? On the ice, the Jackets have won a single playoff series, and they remain one of two NHL teams to have never made it to a conference final. (The Seattle Kraken, whose first season as an NHL expansion team was in 2021-22, are the other.) Then, there’s everything else – the Blue Jackets' presentation from the national anthem to the final horn. Nothing ever changes. It’s all one big Chili Chant.
Doug MacLean, who once held the titles of president, general manager and head coach at the same time, drove a generation of fans out of the building before he got the ax. The next GM, Scott Howson, couldn’t clean up the mess. Who could? Jarmo Kekalainen, whose 11-year run as general manager ended in February, had everything he needed to do a studs-out rebuild. The fans would have bought it. Problem was Kekalainen repeatedly misplaced his blueprint and went off-spec. He thought he could cut corners with expensive veterans. Then came the Mike Babcock fiasco.
It is a quirk of circumstance that a model franchise can be found two blocks west. I don’t cotton to the Crew's monetization of every inch of their realm, sometimes to the detriment of longtime, hardcore fans. That said, the Haslam Sports Group has brought a freshness to the franchise restart and, five-plus years into its administration, their people have won two MLS Cups.
They’ve hit home runs on the soccer ops side. President/GM Tim Bezbatchenko, 42, has won three MLS Cups with two different franchises, and he may be the brightest GM in the league. He went out of his way to hire Wilfried Nancy, 47, who is in possession of a rare brilliance. The culture they have created in a short span is nonpareil.
It's not an easy thing to do, to change the culture. But it shouldn’t take a quarter century.
To that end, the Blue Jackets have reached an inflection point in their history. President of hockey operations John Davidson is two months into his search for the next GM. JD has to nail this one. He has to find a hockey Bez – someone smart, young and dynamic, who will send a gust of fresh air from one side of the front office to the other, who has the audacity, ambition and wherewithal to embed a winning culture.
When I talk to hockey people throughout the league, they all sing a version of the same song of Columbus. It goes something like this: “That is a great hockey market that has yet to be unlocked after all these years. It's a terrible shame.”
The past two seasons have been gruesome – a combined 890 man-games lost to injury, 52-91-21 record, minus-181 goal differential – but the material that Kekalainen stockpiled for the rebuild has goosed interest and allowed fans to hope. Tuesday night, for instance: Luca Del Bel Belluz made his NHL debut and scored a goal on his first shot. James Malatesta, the 2023 Memorial Cup MVP, scored his second NHL goal. And Gavin Brindley, who last week was playing with Michigan in the Frozen Four, played his first pro game.
Blue Jackets rookies racked up 77 points this season, and that was with 2023 third overall pick Adam Fantilli missing considerable time due to a calf injury. There’s a ton of young talent already here, and in the pipeline – Cole Sillinger, David Jiricek, Yegor Chinakhov, Dimitri Voronkov, Denton Mateychuk, goodness, we could go on here …
The fans get it, which is why they showed up to watch one of the worst teams in the league. An average of more than 17,000 showed up for Jackets games this season, marking the largest average attendance rate in 20 years. There is a pent-up energy in this city, and it is set to explode for so many reasons. That’s why the GM job is so attractive, and that is why Davidson has to nail the hire.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets need a general manager who will change the culture
