The Columbus Blue Jackets are a professional ice hockey team based in Columbus, Ohio, United States. They are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL).
Preceded in Ohio's capital by the Columbus Chill of the ECHL and the state of Ohio in general by the Cleveland Barons, the Blue Jackets were founded as an expansion team in 2000. The team qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in 2009.
The Blue Jackets' name and logos were inspired by Ohio's Civil War history. Rick Nash, David Vyborny, Ray Whitney, Chris Clark, Fredrik Modin, Steve Mason, Geoff Sanderson, R. J. Umberger and Sergei Fedorov are some of the more prominent NHL figures to have donned a Columbus jersey. The Blue Jackets play their home games at Nationwide Arena in downtown Columbus, which opened in 2000. They are affiliated with the Springfield Falcons of the AHL and the Evansville IceMen of the ECHL.
Read more about Columbus Blue Jackets: Season-by-season Record, NHL Awards and Trophies, Single-season Records
Famous quotes containing the words columbus and/or blue:
“These were the sounds that issued from the wigwams of this country before Columbus was born; they have not yet died away; and, with remarkably few exceptions, the language of their forefathers is still copious enough for them. I felt that I stood, or rather lay, as near to the primitive man of America, that night, as any of its discoverers ever did.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The traveller who has gone to Italy to study the tactile values of Giotto, or the corruption of the Papacy, may return remembering nothing but the blue sky and the men and women who live under it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)