It's time to genuinely admit that the Columbus Blue Jackets are cursed
Whether it's due to the vengeful spirit of John Hunt Morgan or the wrath of a 15-year-old Elmo Balloon that is still stuck in the Nationwide Arena rafters, it's hard to think of any other reason a franchise could be consistently let down in the way hockey has been in Columbus for nearly a quarter-century.
The Columbus Blue Jackets are cursed. Has there been a team or franchise in all of the world of sports that has suffered more from freak injuries and a history of horrific tragedies than the Jackets since the turn of the millennium? It's difficult to find any other candidates.
Per the Columbus Dispatch, the CBJ have compiled 840-man games lost to injury in the past two seasons, and the story is much the same as you go back through the franchise's history. Per NHL Injury Viz, the CBJ have the fourth-most man games lost due to injury since entering the league in 2000-2001, despite being last in the metric in the 2018-2019 season and only leading the league twice: 2014-2015 and 2019-2020. This is also despite the Jackets having only been in the Playoffs six times in nearly a quarter-century and only advancing past the quarterfinals once in that span.
This trend of injuries has already continued into the 2024-2025 campaign. Over just seven games played so far, Columbus has already accumulated around 23 man games lost, primarily due to injuries sustained over training camp or during just the first few games on the schedule.
So far, the most significant two impacts have been the absence of Blue Jackets Captain Boone Jenner and Kent Johnson, who was having what looked to be the start of a breakout campaign before suffering an upper-body injury that has already sidelined him for three consecutive games.
Many theories have arisen over the years from the Fifth Line on the origin of this supposed curse. However, two different theories have recently re-emerged: the curse of the Ohio Penitentiary and the rumored ghosts of the building and the curse of the Elmo balloon that has supposedly been stuck in the rafters of NWA for around 15 years.
The Ohio Penitentiary theory...
Some newer fans or visitors to Columbus may not know that the Arena District that surrounds Nationwide Boulevard has only existed for around a quarter-century. Before that time, the area that is now occupied by Nationwide Arena, Huntington Park, Lower.com Field, and the area surrounding them were occupied by the Ohio Penitentiary, which operated from 1834 until 1984. It sat vacant for over a decade before being completely demolished in 1995, making way for the entertainment district on the grounds now.
Two particular events stand out in the history of the state prison: the imprisonment of feared Confederate Civil War General John Hunt Morgan and the great fire that broke out at the facility in 1930. We'll look at both events on the next slide.
Did John Hunt Morgan curse these grounds?
John Hunt Morgan was a Confederate States of America general responsible for the infamous "Morgan's Raid" on Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio in 1863, which ran concurrently with the Gettysburg and Vicksburg campaigns at the height of the Civil War. The raid was largely unsuccessful, and General Morgan was captured by Union forces at Salineville, Ohio.
Where did Morgan end up imprisoned? Nowhere other than the Ohio Penitentiary, right here in Columbus. He spent just a few short months behind bars in 1863 before he and several of his officers escaped from the prison in late November of 1863, but he was by far and away the most consequential Confederate prisoner held there during the war. Morgan was killed later in 1864 in Greenville, Tennessee.
The team was named after the "Union blue" jackets worn by Federal Troops during the American Civil War. Since around 2011, the CBJ has leaned more heavily into its Civil War theming and namesake than it did in the years prior to that, but the team's branding has always been based around this identity.
Who better to place the blame on for the curse on the Union Blue that General that opposed the Federals, sowed discord and destruction here in Ohio and was imprisoned on the very same ground that the Jackets now play on today?
On the other hand, the 1930 fire in the Ohio Penitentiary was one of the worst prison disasters in the history of the United States. It ended the lives of 322 prisoners and injured hundreds of others. It's easy to put two and two together here: perhaps some of the ghosts of those unfortunate souls caught in the blaze have been haunting the grounds of Nationwide Arena in retribution for disturbing their rest.
Is it really possible this team be cursed by an inanimate object lost by a child? Well...