The Weekly Reader Vol. 2: The Curse of the Kurt Shirt
By Editorial Staff
As Blue Jacket fans wallow in our collective anguish over the recent performance of our team — and another playoff-less, golf-filled offseason in Columbus — the same question keeps popping up: what happened to turn this team from a playoff contender into the slumping mess of a franchise we’ve been seeing on the ice?
Is it the goaltending? The defense? The inability to create scoring chances? The inability to capitalize on scoring chances? The OT losses? The shootout losses? The unacceptable “compete level” Coach Scott Arniel refers to so frequently? The inevitable two-goal lead we spot our opponents within the first few minutes of every game?
Well, I suppose a strong case could be made for any or all of those elements of the train-wreck which is the Jackets’ game these days. But there are stronger forces at work here: the CBJ’s slide to the bottom of the standings can only truly be explained by one root cause: The Curse of the Kurt Shirt.
We’re cursed….just like the Cubbies with their billy-goat, and whatever the city of Cleveland has done to anger the sports gods over the past few decades. And even worse, I know who’s to blame. [Slowly raises hand…]
Looking back, I guess it all started NHL all-star weekend as my buddy John and I made our annual drive to Detroit to play pond hockey. (And drink beer…don’t forget about the beer…) The Jackets’ season was teetering dangerously close to the brink of irrelevance, and we knew it would take an incredible run — “Winning like eight of 10 games,” we laughed! — out of the all-star break to get back in the playoff hunt. But after living through a tough 7-4 loss against Chicago, it actually started to get interesting…
The next weekend as John and I road-tripped to Chicago — to see a favorite band play this time, and of course drink more beer — we followed the CBJ action closely; and Friday night after the show, we celebrated a huge Jackets victory. Not only had they won; but they had done so on the road, in a shutout, in Detroit of all places! Life had been breathed back into our team….if they could shutout the hated Red Wings on their home ice, anything was possible! Even our new friend Kurt was getting in on the excitement….and the recruitment of another true believer had begun…
Saturday night we again followed the Jackets game from Chicago….John, Kurt, and I all cheering and high-fiving as the boys in Union Blue delivered a home win against Edmonton. To solidify his CBJ fanhood, Kurt had requested a Blue Jackets t-shirt which he could sport proudly in his hometown of Milwaukee. He was now part of the CBJ family; so wishing to make our new brother-at-arms’ initiation a pleasant one, John and I vowed that it would be done.
Over the next few weeks, the Jackets were rolling. The team that was dead in the water at the all-star break had come one shootout loss away from that .800 winning percentage we’d joked about just weeks before, going 7-2-1 in their first 10 games after the break. After the excitement of a home win against Phoenix — now known as the cruelest joke played on the fans this season — the CBJ were three points out of the last playoff spot, and had at least one game in hand over the rest of the West.
And after that fateful February night at Nationwide Arena, the Kurt Shirt was purchased and sent to Milwaukee.
We all know how the season has gone since then, don’t we Jacket fans? The subsequent losing skid can only be described as epic. It began with the goal that wasn’t a goal in Nashville, stretched into the loss of seven straight, and has yet to end….the CBJ have lost 17 of their last 20. The most recent steamy ice dump in Dallas also cost defenseman Kris Russell for the season with a broken left ankle.
Columbus, from the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry. I have provided the catalyst Blue Jackets’ woes since late February: the cursed Kurt Shirt. It has to be the shirt, it HAS to! Because “my team just sucks” isn’t a reason I can live with.
Kurt, say it with us now: “Next year…”