I spent Sunday night watching the first two episodes of The Last Dance, a 10 part ESPN documentary about the 1990s Chicago Bulls dynasty. Despite being a demonstrative Cleveland fan as an adult, I confess that I was a Bulls fan as a kid – more specifically, a Michael Jordan fan. This looks to be an in-depth, comprehensive documentary series and I am looking forward to the remaining episodes in the coming weeks.
It got me thinking: what moments and teams from the Columbus Blue Jackets history would make an interesting documentary? That is, a documentary featuring game clips, behind the scenes footage, and candid interviews from as many participants as possible. Here’s a few I came up with:
- Building the Blue Jackets. Beginning with the early bids to bring NHL hockey to Columbus, continuing through Doug MacLean’s moves to construct the initial roster, and finishing with the ups and downs of the inaugural season.
- Thunder and Lightning. A profile of the tumultuous 2018-19 season. How does a team succeed when the two best players are on their way out of town? How fast can the team gel after an aggressive trade deadline? Finally, everything comes together for a historic sweep of the record-setting Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round.
- Black and Blue. A sequel to the previous series. What if I told you a team lost its best players … and got better? Imagine the montage of players getting injured in game after game in December.
- Franchise: The Rick Nash Story. What happens when a mild-mannered 18 year old is made the face of a young franchise, with the added task of popularizing the sport in a non-hockey market? You could spend an entire episode on the end of his time here in 2012, and another one just about his first game back at Nationwide in 2014. I think there could be great stories told given how candid and articulate Nash was in his interview last week:/
What CBJ docs would you like to see? Share your ideas in the comments.
The week that was
We actually had hockey news this week! On Friday afternoon the Jackets signed goalie Joonas Korpisalo to a two year contract extension. He was set to be a restricted free agent this offseason (whenever that is).
Here is a must-read from Aaron Portzline, in which he speaks to several doctors about what benchmarks must be hit in terms of COVID-19 testing and treatment before the NHL and other sports can resume play.
In our ongoing series of suggestions for how to pass the time in quarantine, Will suggests some video games.
Across the SB Nation network last week, the theme was Best Teams to Never Win a Championship. Of course, the Blue Jackets have never won a championship, so the best team in franchise history is the best to never win. Elpalito makes his case for which one is best. Speaking of Rick Nash, Rachel looked at the best individual athletes from Ohio teams that never won a title. Will, MrSwift, and I also discussed this topic on the Cannon Cast.
Play me out
This may be a perfectly constructed pop rock song: