29 Teams We Hate: Columbus Blue Jackets

Hating the Columbus Blue Jackets is an art form. No, I'm serious - bear with me here.

Think of every team you hate. Let the rage flow through you. Are you angry yet? Of course you are - it takes literally no effort to get your hate-on going for these teams. Now think of Columbus. Nothing, right? They're just so....cute. So little. So harmless and adorable and Midwestern, with the friendliest team twitter account in the history of ever.

@sarah_connors @gfmorris ha! regardless of result, we can still be friends.

— NHL Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) August 29, 2013

But here's the thing, Columbus...WE'RE NOT HERE TO BE FRIENDS.

The Blue Jackets are one of the youngest franchises. They're like that stupid little kid that wants to hang around with the big kids, and the big kids just feel too sorry for him to tell him to straight up go away. They've won zero Stanley Cups, zero Conference Championships, zero Division Championships, zero playoff series....in fact, they've been in one playoff series EVER, and in it, they were swept by the Red Wings.

Not exactly intimidating over here, guys.

But we're not here today to discuss why we should all pity the Blue Jackets, that 13-year-old team with no significant history, hardly any significant players (I guess Rick Nash sort of counts) and no chance of winning the Metropolitan this year. We're here to get our hate on.

Reason number one to hate the Blue Jackets: They employ noted jackwagon Jared Boll. Boll, born in North Carolina, is almost guaranteed to top 1000 career NHL PIMs this year. He's played for Columbus his entire career (not sure if this qualifies for the pity category, but it probably does) and  has actually fought Milan Lucic twice. Which is appropriate, because Boll is basically Lucic with hands of lead.

Boll maybe gets the edge in the rematch from a few years later, but whatever, you can look that up yourself.

They have the 'scrappy underdog' thing down to a T. They're like the bug you thought you squashed, only to look down and see that it's still alive and kicking. It takes a whole can of Raid and a few well-placed blows to the head to take out this team. For example: remember when they really seriously almost made the playoffs last season? What gives, Western Conference? How do you just let that happen?

The only banners their arena has hanging in it are the banners with logos of the other 29 teams. Pathetic.

They claim their biggest "rival" is the Detroit Red Wings because of the whole Ohio-Michigan thing (whee, hand-egg) when in reality Detroit has a 49-19-1 record against them. Columbus is the yappy little chihuahua nipping at the heels of Detroit, and Detroit can hardly be bothered with them.

They're terrible at line brawling. This is literally the only time they've ever done it:

Their dumb goalie beat our awesome goalie for the Vezina. Look, I don't care that Bobrovsky ALMOST got you douchenozzles into the playoffs; ours took us all the way to the Cup finals, I THINK ONE IS MORE SIGNIFICANT, screw you Bobrovsky and I hope that season was a fluke.

When they came into existence, in the expansion draft, they drafted Mathieu Schneider, Dallas Drake, and Dwayne Roloson. Rather  than play for a crap team in Ohio, Schneider and Drake signed with other teams, and Roloson opted to play for the Ice Cats in WORCESTER. You heard me: Star goaltender Dwayne Roloson chose WORCESTER over Columbus. If that doesn't say it all, I don't know what does.

I mean, really. Have you ever been to Columbus? It's basically one giant strip mall whose only redeeming qualities are Skyline Chili and the only Tim Hortons for thousands of miles.

A good percentage of their fans are just dumb Ohio State bros who ran out of OSU sporting events to drink at.

This was their mascot for a while. In what universe did that seem like a good idea? Now their mascot is a bug. It's a metaphor for their team.

For the non-bros, Columbus' closest NFL teams are the Bungles and the Browns, and closest baseball team is the Indians. Yeah, I'd be a hockey fan too if pretty much all the other pro teams were just Factories of Sadness.

Did you know CBJ were originally going to be named the Columbus Justice? What are you, a tv-show for 12 year olds? What is this league, a joke? (don't answer that.) Although, I fail to see how "Blue Jackets" is a cooler name than "Justice" but maybe that's just me...aside from the fact that Justice does sound a little bit too WNBA.

In conclusion: Columbus, it's not easy to hate you. But with your initiation into the Eastern Conference, dammit we'll find a way. Also, stop being so nice.