Columbus Blue Jackets alums honored to return for 25th anniversary celebration
October 20, 2025
Article originally published in the Columbus Dispatch by Brian Hedger >
A couple of them hadn’t seen Nationwide Arena and the surrounding Arena District in years.
How it’s grown into a thriving area of Columbus was impressive considering how things began for the Blue Jackets when Dave King, Kevin Dineen, Ron Tugnutt, Rostislav Klesla and Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre were all part of the city’s first NHL team a quarter century ago.
Grand-Pierre, now a FanDuel Sports Network studio analyst for the team, lives in Columbus and has watched the team grow, but the rest have kept their eyes on the Jackets from afar. Their return Oct. 18 for the first of five Blue Jackets 25th Anniversary celebration games gave each a chance to see what they helped start in 2000-01 as an NHL expansion team
All are impressed.
King, the first head coach in franchise history, attended the Blue Jackets’ 4-1 loss Oct. 16 and was impressed by how many families packed into Nationwide Arena. Dineen was thrilled to walk his family around to see how the area’s grown, and Klesla spent a week in town visiting with former teammates.
All four players were honored on the ice during a pregame ceremony prior to Blue Jackets hosting the Tampa Bay Lightning, and King fired off the cannon before the first draw.
“It’s a beautiful facility,” King said of the game Oct. 16. “Boy, the energy in the building is immense, and I was really impressed … it was a very good crowd, very energetic and I was just impressed with how many kids were there. I saw families that last game and I was impressed because you’re growing the game still. Even after 25 years, you’re trying to grow your base and get stronger at it, and that’s important stuff.”
