West Coast Swing Revisited
- Updated: October 23, 2014
Last year my first article here on Fire The Cannon was about the Blue Jackets traveling to California and the team’s new move to the Eastern Conference. It got me a little nostalgic so I revisited and updated my thoughts from that road trip. Tonight the Blue Jackets go out west for the first time this season to play some of the toughest teams in the league. We as loyal fans of the CBJ have adapted quickly to the Eastern Conference schedule and are hopefully never looking back. When Columbus was in the West watching the Blue Jackets was impossible without keeping a copy of the schedule handy and having plenty of room on the DVR. Now on game day all you have to do is turn the dial to Fox Sports Ohio at 7:00 and you’re more likely than not to find some Jackets hockey.
It amazes me how quickly the Eastern Conference schedule has become normal. Only five games this season start at 9:00 or later. The only 10:00 or later starts this season are two of the three games this weekend and two games in March. The Blue Jackets’ first season in the East had seven games that started at 9:00 or later. The compressed schedule may have caused that number to be higher than this year by scheduling more weekday games to make up for the Olympic break. When the Blue Jackets were still in the Western Conference the strike shortened 2012-2013 season had nine late night games, and the season before had twelve. The 2011-2012 season is the one that can most easily be compared to the current schedule, as it’s the last full slate without a work stoppage or Olympic break. The current Blue Jackets campaign includes 62 games that start at 7:00 or 7:30, and 6 weekend games that start earlier than that. Out of the 82 game schedule that leaves only nine games in the 8:00 hour to go with the five late night games. The 2011-2012 season had 16 games that started in the 8:00 hour and 12 games that started at 9:00 or later.
The inconsistent times and late night starts were an annoyance to die hard CBJ fans, but were a real detriment to the team developing and retaining new fans. I understand that on ice performance is the number one factor in the increased season ticket sales and fan excitement, but I believe the consistency of the road schedule is also an important factor. John Davidson can do commercials about how great the games are in person (and they are), but if your team disappears for a week and you can’t find them on TV at a reasonable time your home product is bound to suffer.
In the Eastern Conference the schedule is predictable. When the team is on the road or I’m not going down to Nationwide Arena the story is always the same… finish dinner and tune in to watch the Jackets at 7pm. My wife (a supportive but still casual fan) even checks if the Jackets are playing when The Family Feud starts. Why? Because that’s what time they play, and the games fall right into our laps. The 2011-2012 schedule used to be an exercise, and for casual fans wasn’t always worth it. A stretch of eight consecutive games that year had start times of 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 10:30, 8:00, 8:30 and back to 7:00. It makes me angry just thinking about how many years the fans and players in Columbus got screwed by being put in the Western Conference.
So tonight and tomorrow the Blue Jackets go retro and play a couple of late night games. If you can stay up tonight and watch them you are a better person than me, or maybe your job the next day starts a little later than mine. I’ll go back to the old way we used to tune into CBJ games by checking the score first thing Friday morning. Good luck and go Jackets!
About Jamie Grube
