Blue Jackets, others struggle for intensity in empty arenas
Nearly a year COLUMBUS — ago, Nationwide Arena was rocking.
On Feb. 4, 2020, the Blue Jackets were in the thick of a playoff chase, Sergei Bobrovsky was back in Columbus for the second time as the Florida Panthers’ goaltender but Jackets rookie goalie Elvis Merzlikins was the star in a 1-0 shutout victory.
That night was filled with great saves and many cheers. On Tuesday, however, nearly 11 months into the COVID19 pandemic, the cheering for Bobrovsky’s reappearance in Columbus was generated by an audio recording — as is the case in all 31 NHL arenas now.
Players are allowed to have family and friends attend games and a few teams are cleared to host a limited number of fans, but the NHL’s game atmosphere across the league isn’t even close to normal. The oddity of empty buildings has even become more obvious than it was during the NHL’s summer postseason, which was played without fans in two quarantine “bubbles,” in
Toronto and Edmonton.
Without the intensity of the playoffs, it’s now harder for players to get their emotional engines revving, though they are keenly aware that it’s their job to figure it out.
“Playoffs are playoffs,” Blue Jackets forward Cam Atkinson said. “It doesn’t take much to get up for those, because there’s so much on the line. Not that there’s not during the regular season, but it’s just different.”
There are fewer bells and whistles, for instance.
The NHL’s production for playoff games was impressive, but it cost a ton of money to pull off. Not all teams can afford to replicate such an atmosphere and those who can might not want to shell out that kind of money when their bottom line is already getting hammered by a lack of attendance revenue.
The result is a mixture of normal and new normal. For the Blue Jackets, that means the ear-splitting cannon is operating as usual and player are filling in for fans to shout “Leo!” just before Leo Welsh belts out the national anthem.
The sound of a goalie’s stick whacking the ice at the end of a power play now echoes to the rafters. Ambient crowd noise is incessant. And if you close your eyes, the clack of a slap shot at a key moment is now indiscernible from one taken in practice.
It’s just weird.
And players who’ve trained their minds to block out 18,000 screaming fans are forced to do the same now against a sea of empty seats. It beats the alternative — no games at all — but it’s not easy.
“That’s the juice,” Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said of a packed arena. “That’s what makes it a game, quite honestly. That’s what gives it an excitement. Players are entertainers. They want to play in front of someone.
“I’m not sure that’s in our near future, judging by what’s going on in our world, so we can’t be concerned. We need to generate playing the right way and playing with the right amount of energy each and every game.”
Numbers game
Now that Pierre-Luc Dubois is with the Winnipeg Jets, the Blue Jackets no longer have a player wearing No. 18.
That’s notable only because of rookie Liam Foudy, who has worn No. 19 to start his NHL career. Foudy said Tuesday that he doesn’t plan to request a change despite wearing No. 18 with the London Knights in the Ontario Hockey League and being selected 18th overall at the 2018 NHL draft — when he was 18 years old.
Roster changes
The trade that sent Dubois to Winnipeg, plus Mikko Koivu’s return from the NHL’s COVID-19 protocols list, created a lineup crunch.
The Blue Jackets solved it, for the time being, by reassigning forward Nathan Gerbe to the taxi squad and sending forward Ryan MacInnis from the taxi squad to the Cleveland Monsters. Gerbe’s exit created a spot in the lineup for Koivu plus a roster spot for Jack Roslovic, who was acquired along with Patrik Laine in the Dubois trade.
Laine is on injured reserve, but more shuffling will be required once he arrives and is cleared — a process that includes obtaining a U.S. work visa and isolating for 48 hours for COVID-19.