DUMB OHIO...

Unfortunately, living in central ohio you are forced to accept that your NHL franchise, the Columbus Blue Jackets must take a backseat to Ohio State University Buckeyes football. You would think that with a professional sports team and world class, elite athletes at their fingertips it would be the opposite. However, the time honored tradition of throwing on your buckeye rosary & jersey, yelling "O-H..." or "I-O..." and pounding insane amounts of beer to merrily frolick and play grab-ass with your buddies while the latent, homo erotic activity of young boys in spandex wrestling with each other/slapping one another on his ass ensues on the field...before capping the night off with a nice car-tipping or couch fire...rules the roost.

You would expect to deal with this kind of mentality, here, in columbus. However, this is a CANADIAN who wrote the following! This letter was taken from the CBJ Mailbag off the Columbus Blue Jackets website.

"I was wondering if maybe you'd think about dressing Sergei Fedorov as a defenseman for a game? I have him on my fantasy hockey team and I could use the help of putting him in a defensive position to help fill a vacancy in my lineup. ---Jesse T., Peterborough, Ontario"
"Obviously the CBJ would never make a personnel decision to benefit your fantasy team. That being said, Fedorov does have experience playing on the blue line as the Detroit Red Wings experimented briefly with Fedorov on defense during the 1995-96 season and again during the 1996-97 playoffs.
"I'm convinced if we left him there, he'd have won a Norris Trophy," Wings senior vice-president Jimmy Devellano said at the time.
The fact remains that Fedorov has, for a long time, been considered one of the top defensive forwards in the league. In fact, he won the Frank J. Selke Trophy, awarded to the NHL's top defensive forward, in 1994 and ‘96.
However, his value for the Columbus Blue Jackets is at the center position, where the Jackets are young with Gilbert Brule (18), Alexandre Svitov (24) and Manny Malhotra (26). "