If John McConnell and Doug MacLean have their way, someday Columbus sports fanatics won’t look back on this as the season that Ohio State football coach John Cooper was fired.
Instead, McConnell and MacLean hope they’ll remember this as the winter that the Blue Jackets and the National Hockey League came to town.
McConnell is the majority owner and MacLean is president and general manager of the Blue Jackets, first major professional sports franchise to set up shop in what is perhaps the No. 1 marketplace in American college athletes.
It’s a much different situation than that in the Twin Cities where this season’s other NHL expansion baby, the Wild, is bringing back the NHL and joining the Twins, Vikings, Timberwolves and the University of Minnesota teams on the sports scene.
Historically, in Columbus, fans have had tunnel vision–the Ohio State Buckeyes always have been the only game in town.
But Friday night when the Blue Jackets meet the Blackhawks in the state-of-the-art $150 million Nationwide Arena they’ll be skating before the 11th sellout crowd of the season in a building that seats 18,524.
The downtown facility anchors the new 95-acre “Arena District,” a mixture of business, entertainment and residential space.
By design, the arena doesn’t stand out the way the United Center in Chicago and the new Staples Center in Los Angeles do. Instead, it has been woven into the urban fabric, mixing and matching with the nearby old brick and steel warehouse and office buildings.
The arena has already become a stop on the concert circuit and the home of a professional lacrosse team.
“We’re running the building as well as the team,” says MacLean. “Putting people in the building has been an extra challenge.”
It’s projected that Nationwide Arena can generate from $10 million to $25 million in additional revenue for the Blue Jackets.
The birth of the Blue Jackets is the culmination of more than 10 years of commitment to bringing a major league team to Columbus by the 77-year-old McConnell, a self-made business tycoon who has long been one of the city’s foremost civic leaders.
The Columbus franchise was awarded June 25, 1997. McConnell hired MacLean to run it Feb. 11, 1998, well before the first game.
MacLean’s resume included an assortment of coaching and personnel jobs with four NHL teams. His biggest accomplishment was leading the Florida Panthers to the Stanley Cup finals in 1996, their third season and his first as a head coach.
Last July, MacLean hired 52-year-old Dave King to coach the Blue Jackets.
“I interviewed 15 people,” said MacLean. “I wanted someone experienced who understood this very special situation we were in and who could handle it. Dave is a good communicator. That makes it a little easier because I want to be involved.”
From the early 1980s into the early ’90s King was the Canadian national coach, taking teams of teenagers to major international tournaments, often pitting them against experienced European stars and bringing back bronze, silver and occasionally gold medals.
In 1994-95 King broke into the NHL with the Calgary Flames and in his three seasons there his teams compiled a 109-76-31 record and won two divisional championships. After being let go by the Flames, King spent two seasons as an assistant coach and one as director of European scouting for the Montreal Canadiens.
King was a college professor before becoming a coach and his forte as a coach always has been his teaching ability.
He considers the education he received as coach of the Canadian National Team as the cornerstone of his career. “I wasn’t just a guy coaching in Europe or in the NHL,” he explains. “We played preseason games against the AHL (American Hockey League) and the NHL. We played this myriad of international teams. I learned that in terms of building a team the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.”
King had 72 players with which to build when the Blue Jackets went to training camp.
“Today we have 10 guys on our [23-player] roster from the expansion draft,” says MacLean. “My goal was to start building by signing free agents and making trades.”
The Blue Jackets’ leading scorer, left wing Geoff Sanderson, came from Buffalo in the expansion draft and goaltender Ron Tugnutt was signed as a free agent.
Their other core players are a mixed bag. Espen Knutsen, the center from Scandinavia, was acquired from Anaheim for a fourth round draft pick. Right wing Steve Heinze was an expansion draftee from Boston. Defenseman Jamie Heward was claimed from the New York Islanders on waivers.
The first half of the season has typified the maiden voyages of other recent NHL expansion franchises. The Blue Jackets are last in the Western Conference.
But their record is a respectable 13-25-4-2 and they improved in each of their first three months, getting seven points in October, nine in November and 14 in December.
“I feel we should have four or five more wins,” says MacLean. “But we’re right where Nashville was at the halfway point in its first year.
“Creating an offense is without a doubt the toughest part. We have trouble scoring. That’s why we signed the Europeans–Espen Knutsen and David Vyborny and some of these people, hoping they’ll give us a little offensive lift.
“We have an $18.2 million payroll and we’ll probably stay low for the next three or four years. I think that’s critical to our success.
“The most important thing I see is the way the whole group has embraced the community. That’s what will sell hockey in Columbus.”
