Thank You, Jakub Voracek: Blue Jackets Trade Contract to Arizona

The Blue Jackets announced on Thursday that they were dealing the rights to LTIR forward Jakub Voracek to the Arizona Coyotes. They’re sending a 6th round pick along with Voracek, in exchange receiving journeyman goaltender Jon Gillies from the Coyotes.

This one stinks from a personal perspective, because Jakub Voracek is a great person. It’s hard to see him go out like this, if he has indeed played his final NHL game. I wanted to share a personal story here, but lets go over the background real fast.

Originally taken by the Blue Jackets 7th overall at the 2007 draft, Voracek gave us a glimmer of hope the moment he was picked. You might remember that draft because it was held in Columbus. Voracek started strong for the Jackets and seemed to be on the rise before being dealt to the Philadelphia Flyers in, quite frankly, the worst trade in franchise history.

That 2007 draft was one of the first ones I monitored really closely. I’m originally from Columbus, but I moved west as a young adult to start my life there. My love for hockey is through the roof, so I was happy to land in a city with a prominent Western Hockey League team. This is where my new love was discovered: following NHL draft prospects.

In the WHL that season, everyone was talking about Keaton Ellerby, Karl Alzner, Thomas Hickey, and Zach Hamill. But one player that seemed to line up with everything the Jackets needed was QMJHL forward Jakub Voracek, so I kept a keen eye on his progress as well. I was ecstatic when the Jackets were able to pluck him out of the draft. He seemed like the perfect fit, and he was.

After the Jackets dealt Voracek to the Flyers at the 2011 draft, the two franchises went in opposite directions. The Flyers had many successful years and Jakub developed into one of the premier playmaking wingers in the NHL. The Jackets, well, they had some lean years, then some success, and then fell off again.

Two summers ago they met somewhere in the middle, and GM Jarmo Kekalainen re-acquired Voracek from the Flyers for beloved winger Cam Atkinson. Jarmo told us all that Jakub would change the look of the Blue Jackets, and he sure did. He was still the carefree, friendly personality that we all remembered … but he also had a learned way to his game, and was exactly what this team needed. In fact, he went on to lead them in scoring last season.

Meanwhile, yours truly relocated back across the country. Now married and with three daughters, I was excited to get back into a market where I would be able to see the Blue Jackets play live on a more consistent basis. Unfortunately we did not land in Central Ohio, but we were able to take our kids to their first live CBJ game last January, in Raleigh, NC.

Up to that point, my kids saw the Jackets as “dad’s hobby”. We’d taken them to plenty of hockey games before, but never one where my favorite team played, so I probably filled their heads with a much grander vision than what we actually should have expected.

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They might have been almost as excited for the game as myself, when we went down to the glass pre-game. We found a spot behind the net and were taking in warm-ups, when I noticed Jakub Voracek point to my middle daughter. Then he started trying to flip pucks, one by one, up into the netting to fall down to her.

It’s funny that he picked her out of the small group of CBJ fans that were there. She’s a typical middle child, rarely complains, just happy-go-lucky and rolls with the punches as they come. We had promised her a souvenir after our last sports event – where her sisters both snagged foul balls at a baseball game. Maybe it was fate, if you believe in that sort of thing.

Eventually, after more tries than I’m sure he’d feel comfortable with me mentioning, he succeeded in getting her a puck. For all the hype of their first CBJ game, everything I built it up to be, with that one gesture, Jakub Voracek made it so much better than any of us expected. And he didn’t just do it that once, he would do that before every game.

Imagine the kind of person that takes the time to make one or two kids in the crowd feel special before every game. Aside from the skill and on-ice moments, that’s what I’ll remember most about Jakub. I hope he’s in a good place physically and in good health overall, that should come first. But we will certainly miss the player – and more so, the person.