CBJ for real?

Three games into the 2006-07 NHL season, the Columbus Blue Jackets not only look like playoff contenders but also Stanley Cup contenders. Starting this season how they finished last season, these guys are putting the puck in the net. Rick Nash already has three goals and Nikolai Zherdev scored two goals last night in his first game of the season, after waiting in the Moscow airport for like two weeks, trying to get a flight to Columbus. With the team having scored 5 goals in two of their three games, the best part is that Sergei Fedorov has not even played yet.

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A few years ago, ESPN The Magazine listed CBJ games as the "#1 stadium experience in professional sports." Now I enjoy attending CBJ games, but give me a break. First of all, organs are supposed to sound like organs, not Casio keyboards from 1985. I don't know who decided that the CBJ organ player must use an unprofessional-sounding synth voice instead of an organ voice, but it sucks and it sounds stupid. It makes the games less enjoyable--less authentic--than if the organ just sounded like a fucking organ.

Second, the Director of Entertainment (I believe they call it) SUCKS ASS!!! That's the person who plays song excerpts during breaks and stuff like that. From what I've heard during the first couple games on TV this season, it sounds like they hired someone new for that position. Regardless of whether it's someone new or someone old, the person who does that job really blows. The songs are supposed to create some energy, but they don't. From watching the games on TV, I cannot tell exactly what songs they've been playing, but it sounds like a bunch of stupid, puke-worthy top 40 crap. And when they do play something that "rocks," it doesn't rock. Particularly some song that goes "Click click boom" (or something like that)--a song I've also heard on TNT commercials. It doesn't rock, folks! It's just a bunch of stupid guys with the mentality of 10-year-old boys playing cowboys and Indians trying to sound tough. That's not rock.

Old Van Halen. That's rock! Black Sabbath (not the way-overused Iron Man) is rock. Early Ozzy Osborne (not overdone Crazy Train) is rock. GnR stuff you've never heard on the radio is rock. Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Primus, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Cake, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Jane's Addiction, Pixies, The Clash... That's rock! Conversely, "hard rock" from the last ten or fifteen years almost exclusively IS NOT ROCK and DOES NOT ROCK, excluding perhaps System of a Down and Tool. Gary Numan and The Human League rock 100 times more than most of the shit they play at CBJ games.

Third, that crappy Bush song they've played before each period since Day 1 SUCKS!!! It's supposed to generate energy and excitement. It doesn't. You know what song does, though? "You could be mine" by GnR, the song they used to play before each period at Chill games. That song starts off with tons of energy but builds and builds until it all explodes, at which point the team would skate out onto the ice with the crowd completely pumped.

The person in charge of all this stuff at CBJ games totally fucking sucks! I want that job because I know I could make CBJ games fun. Did you hear me, Columbus Blue Jackets or Nationwide Arena management? I want that job!!! And if anyone reading this knows who I should contact about getting that job and consequently making CBJ games rock, please let me know. Better yet, let them know.

A final note: I went to a hockey game at Madison Square Garden on Halloween night, 2005, between the Rangers and the Canadiens. During the second intermission, the ORGAN player played Iron Man from start to finish. Like I said, Iron Man is way overplayed at sporting events, but this was different. This was Iron Man from start to finish--not just two bars--on an ORGAN. It totally rocked. It is probably the most memorable five minutes I've ever experienced at a hockey game (or any other sporting event, including dozens of Ohio State football games). It's something I know I'll never experience at a CBJ game as long as the current decision-makers hold their jobs. That's a shame.

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