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Scenes From One Incredible Night Inside Ohio Stadium · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to buck Eyes tomorrow morning. From Monday, March third,
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  Speaker 1: I'm your host, tom Or the Texas game in one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and eighty days, the gimmigainst. Michigan in two hundred
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  Speaker 1: and seventy one days. If you're planning your next event,
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  Speaker 1: make it unforgettable with Grateful Griddle, Columbus's favorite food truck
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  Speaker 1: serving up Smashburger's gourmet sandwiches and good vibes. Book your
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  Speaker 1: catering today at Grateful Griddle oh dot com. I'm gonna
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  Speaker 1: try something just a little different on today's show and
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  Speaker 1: be talking about Saturday nights NHL Stadium Series game inside
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  Speaker 1: Ohio Stadium, of course, the home of Ohio State football,
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  Speaker 1: but for one night, also the home of the Columbus
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  Speaker 1: Bluejackets hockey team. It was a remarkable night in so
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  Speaker 1: many ways. I just want to tell you a little
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  Speaker 1: bit about that for folks who maybe did not get
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  Speaker 1: a chance to sit inside a very chilly Ohio stadium
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  Speaker 1: on Saturday night, on a night that was anything but
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  Speaker 1: ordinary in so many ways. The feeling was a familiar
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  Speaker 1: one for Columbus Bluejackets fans. The Jackets had jumped out
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  Speaker 1: to a three to one lead against the hated Detroit
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  Speaker 1: Red Wings, just two nights after handing the Wings a
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  Speaker 1: five to two defeat up in Detroit. All they needed
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  Speaker 1: to do was run out the final twenty minutes of
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  Speaker 1: the game, and they would have sole possession of the
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  Speaker 1: top wild card spot in the Eastern Conference. But the
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  Speaker 1: first goal of the third period came from Detroit's Patrick Caine,
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  Speaker 1: a familiar villain, he cut the Jackets lead to three
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  Speaker 1: to two just three point thirty four into the period.
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  Speaker 1: It stayed that way for thirteen more minutes before Alex
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  Speaker 1: Deprincat tied it at this sixteen thirty six mark. A
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  Speaker 1: night that started out with so much joy and excitement
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  Speaker 1: had suddenly swung so dramatically against the Jackets. Now the
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  Speaker 1: big question seemed to be whether they could even hold
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  Speaker 1: off to Detroit's momentum and get the game into overtime
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  Speaker 1: at all, maybe salvaging a crucial point in the playoff race.
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  Speaker 1: This feeling it was nothing new. After the first ten
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  Speaker 1: minutes of franchise history, not much has come easy for
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  Speaker 1: the Columbus Blue Jackets or their fans. The puck dropped
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  Speaker 1: for the first time on October seventh, two thousand and
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  Speaker 1: in the span of nine minutes and twenty seconds of
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  Speaker 1: game clock, the Jackets jumped out to a three to
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  Speaker 1: nothing lead on the visiting Chicago Blackhawks. The scene inside
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  Speaker 1: Nationwide Arena that night was absolute bedlam. Then Columbus gave
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  Speaker 1: up five unanswered goals and lost in its first shot
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  Speaker 1: at the National Hockey Spotlight five to three. Now that spotlight,
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  Speaker 1: it has not found its way back to Central Ohio
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  Speaker 1: very often, and in the intervening twenty four years and change,
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  Speaker 1: the high point in nearly a quarter century of Blue
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  Speaker 1: Jackets hockey came in a shocking first round sweep of
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  Speaker 1: the top seeded Tampa Bay Lightning in twenty nineteen, after
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  Speaker 1: which the Jackets jumped out to a two to one
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  Speaker 1: lead over Boston in the second round before falling in
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  Speaker 1: six games. To date, those are the only times in
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  Speaker 1: franchise history that a home crowd in Columbus has been
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  Speaker 1: able to celebrate a win that did more than just
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  Speaker 1: even a playoff series. The year after that, they won
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  Speaker 1: a qualifying round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs in
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  Speaker 1: front of an empty arena before getting dispatched by the
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  Speaker 1: Lightning and what was officially labeled as the first round
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  Speaker 1: of the playoffs. In the four years since, Jackets fans
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  Speaker 1: have spent a lot more time calculating draft lottery odds
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  Speaker 1: than playoff odds. But they've been bad, but not quite
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  Speaker 1: bad enough to be truly memorable or to win the
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  Speaker 1: NFL's draft lottery. They've been closer to an NHL version
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  Speaker 1: of the non playable character from a video game. Their
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  Speaker 1: main role, it has seemed to times, was to provide
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  Speaker 1: notable teams with someone to play against. That's why it
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  Speaker 1: was so notable when the twenty twenty five NHL Stadium
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  Speaker 1: Series game in Columbus was first announced on February seventeenth,
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. At the time, the Blue Jackets, Florida Panthers,
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  Speaker 1: and the nameless team in Utah were the only franchises
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  Speaker 1: in the league that had never played in one of
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  Speaker 1: the league's signature outdoor events. The matchup of the team
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  Speaker 1: from Columbus against the team from Michigan played inside Ohio
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  Speaker 1: Stadium Well, that made for ere easy storylines the National
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  Speaker 1: Hockey Spotlight was finally going to return to Central Ohio.
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  Speaker 1: The NHL does a remarkable job with the Stadium Series games.
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  Speaker 1: The attention to details impeccable, and the night represented a
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  Speaker 1: neat blend of Ohio State football traditions and the Bluejacket's
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  Speaker 1: own unique brand. Everything about the day felt big time,
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  Speaker 1: especially for a franchise whose list of big time moments
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  Speaker 1: remains quite short. A crowd of ninety four thousan seven
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  Speaker 1: fifty one packed Ohio Stadium for the game, the second
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  Speaker 1: largest in NHL history. However, most of the pregame scene
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  Speaker 1: in and around Ohio Stadium on Saturday felt borrowed from
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  Speaker 1: the Buckeyes. ESPN's pregame show came to town, and the first
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  Speaker 1: non ESPN personality on stage was Brutus Buckeye. The Ohio
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  Speaker 1: State Band played a pregame concert inside Saint John Arena.
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  Speaker 1: The Blue Jackets passed through there before walking across Woody
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  Speaker 1: Hayes Drive and into the north rotunda of Ohio Stadium,
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  Speaker 1: a tradition straight out of an Ohio State football saturd.
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  Speaker 1: The crowd, made up mostly of Blue Jackets fans, got
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  Speaker 1: Anchio chant rolling around the horseshoe as the team's warmed up,
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  Speaker 1: and the pregame show featured the literal signature move of
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  Speaker 1: the Ohio State University band script Ohio. The constant references
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  Speaker 1: to Ohio State, and particularly Buckeye football made sense. That's
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  Speaker 1: the big time program in town. They're one of the
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  Speaker 1: winningest teams in history, that defending national champion, and the
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  Speaker 1: central body around which everything in the region seems to orbit.
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  Speaker 1: You want a big time sporting event in Columbus, well
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  Speaker 1: you'd better paint it scarlet and gray. But a funny
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  Speaker 1: thing happened throughout the evening. The Buckeye centric focus toned
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  Speaker 1: down a little. Columbus's other team took center stage. The
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  Speaker 1: Ochio chance from earlier, well they gave way to CBJ
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  Speaker 1: the jail. Now we're back to where we started. The
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  Speaker 1: score was tied at three with just over three minutes
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  Speaker 1: to play. The Blue Jackets surrendered a two goal lead,
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  Speaker 1: and the franchise that has spent the better part of
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  Speaker 1: a quarter century under its own personal dark cloud seemed
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  Speaker 1: on the verge of turning a rare day into the
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  Speaker 1: sun into another dreary finish. Here we go again was palpable.
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  Speaker 1: But then Justin Danforth won a battle for the puck,
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  Speaker 1: and he knocked home his own rebound for a four
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  Speaker 1: to three. Then the Jackets then spent the next minute
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  Speaker 1: or two tempting fate by hitting the post twice after
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  Speaker 1: Detroit pulled its goalie before Adam fan Tilly knocked home
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  Speaker 1: an insurance goal into the empty net. The Jackets won
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  Speaker 1: five to three in a game that might help remind
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  Speaker 1: the nation that Columbus doesn't just have a hockey team,
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  Speaker 1: it has one with a fan base. They can show
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  Speaker 1: up ninety thousand strong on a cold night, and that
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  Speaker 1: fan base, well, it now has a team that sits
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  Speaker 1: all alone. Is the first wildcard in the Eastern Conference.
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  Speaker 1: This was a night that was a long time coming.
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  Speaker 1: In a lot of ways. Columbus and its famous football
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  Speaker 1: stadium were long overdue to host one of the NHL's
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  Speaker 1: outdoor events. Blue Jackets fans were owed a night like
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  Speaker 1: this to celebrate not just the growth of hockey in
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  Speaker 1: central Ohio, but the growth of this Blue Jackets team
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  Speaker 1: and the team. They were long overdue so for some
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  Speaker 1: positive national attention. The Stadium series game guarded more focus
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  Speaker 1: in Columbus than any regular season game in recent memory,
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  Speaker 1: maybe even since that first night in franchise history in
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  Speaker 1: October two thousand. Now, this young Blue Jackets team potentially
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  Speaker 1: stands a month and a half away from a surprising
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  Speaker 1: playoff berth. Only one of their remaining regular season games
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  Speaker 1: is scheduled for national TV, of course, and that one
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  Speaker 1: has more to do with Alex Ovechkin's chase the all
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  Speaker 1: time goalscoring record than anything else. But Saturday night inside
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  Speaker 1: Ohio Stadium, the Blue Jackets showed the nation that Columbus
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  Speaker 1: can be a contender in something other than a quick