When I wrote my report card for Matt Calvert’s 2016-17 season early this offseason, I touched on this, but I think it still rings true.
The athletes we love most are either the ones who are most ridiculously talented and the ones who aren’t.
We love the way those who are blessed make the game look easy. In a single word, it’s greatness. We love watching humans like Tiger Woods and LeBron James, those who can achieve at a level beyond anyone else in the world, their actions becoming poetry in motion while we shake our heads and drop our jaws.
Then there are those who punch above their weight. The underdog story is older than sports, really, as David beat Goliath in the ultimate upset long before Upset was a thing. Seeing someone maximize their talent is something us normal human brings can relate to; most of us picture ourselves as the ultimate gritty player, the one who gets dirty and battles because that’s who we would be if we could have made it to the pros.
Of course, Matt Calvert is the latter. And as we sit here potentially about to watch the longest-tenured Blue Jacket leave the fold, it’s worth pointing out how much fun it has been to watch No. 11 over the past seven years.
Of course, his legend as a Columbus Blue Jacket was cemented April 19, 2014. On that night, he scored a shorthanded goal in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs against Pittsburgh and then added the game winner shortly into double overtime, giving the team the first playoff win in franchise history.
When I got my first Blue Jackets jersey later that year, it had Matt Calvert's name on the back. For so long, buying a Columbus jersey was a game of Russian roulette with your pocketbook; you never knew if the guy whose sweater you bought might be on the way out within the year (or even the month). But I knew you couldn't go wrong having the jersey of the guy who won the first playoff game in franchise history.
But another Matt Calvert memory stands out. I remember a moment in the thrilling lockout-shortened season of 2012-13 during an afternoon game against the Red Wings, who had always toyed with Columbus over the years. Midway through the first period, Calvert buzzed his way through the offensive zone, forcing a turnover behind the net that resulted in a Cam Atkinson goal that kicked off a Saturday afternoon win against the Wings.
I remember sitting in Nationwide Arena that day pondering a lot of things. Could that Jackets team, so young and still trying to produce a buzz in the wake of the lockout, make the playoffs? (Turns out, the answer was no, but they did come damn close.) But I also wondered just how far that kind of grit could take a player, and if No. 11 could really pull off plays like that on a consistent basis against the best players in the world.
A few years later, the answer is most certainly yes. Far too many people will likely use Calvert’s playoff cross-check that earned him a suspension as representative of the kind of player he is, but the evidence shows he's more hard-nosed than dirty. When I think of Matt Calvert, I think of stepping up to fight Rick Nash in 2014, or his bout with Matt Dumba in last year’s showdown at Minnesota, or, yes, the famous shorthanded winner this past season after taking a puck to the head against the New York Rangers.
And we’ll always have that playoff goal.
Hopefully this isn’t goodbye, but if it is, it’s been a heck of a time. And no matter what happens, I’m still gonna be wearing that No. 11 jersey.
