Why Columbus Blue Jackets Fans Want a Name for the Franchise’s Bad-Luck Streak
From limited playoff success to painful losses, Columbus fans are weighing names for the curse they say has followed the Blue Jackets.
Columbus Blue Jackets fans have spent more than a quarter-century collecting reasons to wonder when the franchise’s fortunes will turn. Now, some are giving that frustration a name: the “Curse of the Mac,” the “Ohio Penitentiary Curse,” or perhaps the Elmo Curse. The suggestions are playful, but the history behind them is not hard to recognize.
The Blue Jackets have never reached a conference final. Across the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, only a handful of teams share that distinction, and some have had more postseason success in other ways. Columbus has one memorable series win to point to: its 2019 sweep of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The 2020 qualification round against Toronto added postseason results, but the NHL does not count it as a playoff series victory. Call the total one series win, with a qualification-round footnote.
A short list of postseason milestones
The drought extends beyond the conference final. The franchise has not won a division title or a Presidents’ Trophy, and the source article points to the lack of a 90-point scorer as another marker of how rarely the club has enjoyed a season at the league’s highest level. Those absences give the “curse” joke its staying power: fans can point to a long list of goals the team has yet to reach.
Other teams with limited postseason records offer useful context. The New Orleans Pelicans have won two playoff series, most recently in 2018, while the Charlotte Hornets have won four, with their last series victory in 2002. The Seattle Kraken, entering their sixth NHL season in the article’s account, have yet to reach a conference final. The Utah Mammoth also fit the record in a technical sense, though the source treats the club’s connection to the Arizona and Phoenix Coyotes as relevant context: that franchise reached the conference final in 2012.
That comparison makes Columbus’s case less about a single unlucky season and more about an accumulation. One breakthrough can change a franchise’s story; the Lightning sweep did that for a moment. Yet a historic result has to be followed by more sustained success to reshape the larger picture. For Blue Jackets fans, the gap between that 2019 high and the achievements still missing is part of the joke.
The roster story adds to the frustration
Postseason records are only part of what shapes the fan experience. Columbus has had high draft picks who did not become the stars supporters hoped for, including Ryan Murray and Gilbert Brule, and prominent players have left over the years. The list includes Pierre-Luc Dubois, Seth Jones, Ryan Johansen and Patrik Laine. The source also names Kirill Marchenko among those who departed; the point is the broader churn of recognizable talent, not a claim that every exit followed the same path.
That turnover can make it difficult to build a stable identity. A team trying to climb the standings needs its roster plans to hold together long enough for players to grow into their roles and for the organization to see whether its choices are working. When notable names move on and losing stretches pile up, supporters are left measuring promise against what actually followed. The latest rough start and a tumultuous summer of roster construction, as described by the source, have brought that familiar unease back into view.
The hardest parts of the franchise’s story are not sports jokes. The source recalls the deaths of Brittanie Cecil, goaltender Matiss Kivlenieks and forward Johnny Gaudreau. Their names carry grief for the people who knew them and for the wider Blue Jackets community. They sit in a different category from missed playoff targets or disappointing roster outcomes, even as all have become part of the emotional history surrounding the club.
Fans have a few names in mind
Mike Stump, writing as @Mr_UnionBlue, asked the 5th Line for ideas in a post dated Oct. 21, 2026. The suggestions ranged from the Elmo Curse to a reference to John Hunt Morgan. One fan offered “The Ohio Penitentiary Curse,” while another proposed “Curse of the Mac,” explaining it with “MacLean, McConnell, McLosing.” A separate reply blamed the McConnell family. The names are fan contributions, not established explanations for the team’s record.
Stump has linked the Ohio Penitentiary and John Hunt Morgan references to an earlier piece from 2024. The Elmo idea, meanwhile, draws on a balloon that has become a familiar topic of conversation among fans because it hangs above the shoot-twice end of the arena. Each candidate gives the bad-luck story a different shape: local history, team ownership or an oddly specific arena fixture.
The McConnells are the constant across the club’s history, and Stump’s argument recognizes both sides of that connection. Without Mr. Mac, NHL hockey might never have come to Columbus. Supporters can be grateful for that foundation and still find the decades since frustrating. A nickname lets them turn that complicated mix into shared dark humor.
Stump returned to the question in another post dated Oct. 23, 2026, saying that 25 years of “cosmic bad luck” deserved a name and asking for more ideas from the 5th Line. The franchise’s next chapter will be measured in the usual way: results, player development and postseason progress. Until the Blue Jackets deliver a lasting breakthrough, fans may keep refining the curse’s name—and waiting for their first true winner.
