Courtesy of Laing Akers
John McConnell & Laing Akers
In 2000, Laing Akers and her then-husband attended the first-ever Columbus Blue Jackets game in an evening gown and tuxedo, respectively. It wasn’t necessarily in honor of the new team; the couple had left a wedding early in order to make the October game. Though the Jackets lost to the Chicago Blackhawks 5-3, the team won Akers’ support.
“The whole atmosphere was electric,” Akers says. “I think that’s what made me fall in love with the sport.”
At the time, Akers didn’t know anything about hockey. It was her husband who persuaded her to get season tickets. Akers continued to support the team after her divorce.
“I got rid of the husband, but I got to keep the tickets,” she says.
Akers, a lawyer, is the biggest Blue Jackets fan in her office. You won’t catch her in a suit jacket or anything of the sort at a game, though. For 20-plus years of Blue Jackets history, Akers has never worn a coat to Nationwide Arena. Instead, she’ll be decked out in Blue Jacket sweater jerseys and scarves, depending on the weather, she says.
Courtesy of Laing Akers
Her fandom has gone beyond Columbus. She followed the Blue Jackets to Detroit in 2009 for the team’s first playoff appearance. Once, during a Blue Jackets playoff game in Pittsburgh, owner John P. McConnell came to say hello during the second intermission to thank her and other visiting fans for coming to the game.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, she completed her goal of visiting every NHL arena by crossing the Montreal Canadiens’ Centre Bell arena off her list. Akers plans to visit the home of the newly added Seattle Kraken this season.
Out of all those travels, Akers most enjoyed visiting the Minnesota Wild’s St. Paul arena in a historic game against the Jackets on New Year’s Eve 2016. It was the first time in any of the four major North American professional sports leagues that two teams with a winning streak of at least 12 games faced off, according to the NHL.
The Jackets won that game, but Akers remembers no hard feelings from the Wild fans, who lived up to the Minnesota stereotype of being exceedingly nice. She even mingled with some of the fans at a bar after the game.
“The whole thing was fun. … People there were just great,” she says. “It was more about the hockey than just about the winning.”
But if there’s only one word to describe her fandom, that word would be family, Akers adds.
“It’s more than just going to a game, it’s who we are,” she says.
Fresh Skates
Following a season of adjustment to the global pandemic, the Columbus Blue Jackets are now in the midst of a campaign to finally put a trophy in their case at the end of the National Hockey League 2021-2022 season.
That may be a tall order. Prior to the start of the Jackets’ first game of the season in October, online sports betting company DraftKings gave the team the longest shot of winning the Stanley Cup with odds of about 1-in-200.
“We’re going through the process and taking it game by game,” says Jackets centerman Boone Jenner, who was named team captain prior to the start of the season.
The Jackets went on to win their first game of the year 8-2 against the Arizona Coyotes. At press time, the team was ranked fifth out of the eight teams in the Metropolitan Division. The Jackets will need to rank at least third in the division or be one of the next two highest-scoring teams in all of the Eastern Conference in order to qualify for the playoffs.
This season marks somewhat of a fresh start for the Blue Jackets. Following the exit of six-year head coach John Tortorella, the team promoted assistant coach Brad Larsen. More strikingly, roster changes have resulted in the team being the youngest in the league.
“We’re hungry,” Jenner says. “Every year, there’s going to be changes.”
Normalcy on Ice
The NHL has experienced its own changes. This season welcomes the Seattle Kraken as the 32nd team in the league as the NHL returns to a full season schedule of 82 games after a year in flux.
Though the NHL has returned to a regular season, Blue Jackets fans continue to experience the lingering effects of the pandemic, as all attendees are required to wear masks.
“You work towards normalcy, but you can’t let your guard down,” says John Davidson, the Blue Jackets president of hockey operations who, this past May, returned to the team after a stint with the New York Rangers. “Obviously, we’re not out of the woods with (COVID-19) … even though we’re still all fatigued by it.”
Brandon Klein is the senior editor. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
