Game 70/Detroit: My Take

The host Columbus Blue Jackets were shut out, 2-0, by the visiting Detroit Red Wings.

I've been saying for some time that if the Columbus Blue Jackets were to have a successful end to the season, they would need to find a way to beat the good teams.

I respectfully submit that giving up the game-winning goal a mere 33 seconds into the game is not one of those ways.

Enough about the game.  My one real point of joy in the evening (outside of spending it with my loving and sympathetic spouse) was the reaction that my new Jon Mirasty Blue Jackets jersey received on the concourse.  A couple guys saw the jersey and proceeded to talk to each other at length about the undeniable cool factor of a Mirasty jersey.  "Dude is a legend!" they said.  Couldn't help but smile.

NEXT UP: Saturday, 2PM in Minnesota.

The search is over: My Mirasty jersey

[NOTE: There may be a little dramatic license taken in this post, but please don't let that get in the way of a good story.  Also, if you're totally turned off by fighting in hockey, move along.]

"We know what's coming," Hitchcock said. "We've got Darth Vader coming to town (tonight)." - Ken Hitchcock, January 12, 2008

Among the many issues that Ken Hitchcock had to address
in taking over the CBJ, a lack of toughness - especially with
Nashville - was one of them. (Flickr image by Danielle Browne)

He was no dummy.  Ken Hitchcock knew that the Nashville Predators represented a mountain that the Columbus Blue Jackets would have to climb.  For years, the Preds had the CBJ's number.  Hitch put a face to that challenge, casting it in pure good versus evil terms that any North American who had seen a movie since 1977 could quickly understand (and has since spawned a virtual cottage industry for bloggers).  Vader was the bad overlord, hence his Blue Jackets squad took the role of the plucky rebel upstarts.  Of course, the upstarts win in the end...at least in the movies.

It wasn't that easy for the hockey team.  OK, I'll grant that they won the next night, 2-1 in a shootout.  But Columbus had a bit of a reputation as a soft team, something that has only recently started to shake off.  The Columbus version of Hitch Hockey was about strength, toughness, lines you don't let the other teams pass without extracting a price...and an occasional goal to grab the game away.  Scott Howson stocked the blue line with big, veteran, Hitch defensemen - Commodore, Tyutin, Hejda - to try to match talent to the scheme.