Full interview: Dom Tiberi sits down with Columbus Blue Jacket legend Rick Nash

rick when you heard that the blue jackets were going to retire your number and i know you you're a humble kid what what what what went through your head a lot of emotions right away a lot of memories from when i first got to columbus and first landed at cmh to uh you know to making it to the playoffs that year um thinking about all the sacrifices that my parents made to get me to play hockey it was honestly tough to put into words um what it meant to me i i believe it's it's not only a big honor in hockey but in sports in general to have your number retired is one of the biggest honors i don't know if you ever dreamed of it when you were a little boy growing up in canada that one day your number would hang from the rafters of an arena but it's going to happen and when you come in here i mean how emotional do you get when you think of that very emotional that was one of the the key points is right away i just went back to my childhood and we used to go to one toronto maple leaf game uh a year at the maple leaf gardens and you looked up and you saw you know dave keon daryl sittler and all these all these legends and yeah sure i i could dream about it but i also dreamed about being an nhl hockey player and and uh scoring my first nhl goal and those you know don't really seem the odds aren't kind of in your favors with the numbers so for me one of the first things that hit was thinking that my kids and my grandkids and their grandkids are going to come to nationwide arena and think looking up and seeing 61 in the stands forever and that that's when it kind of hits home and you get experience it with some of your former teammates doug mclean who brought you here coach hitchcock who you played for just has that all sunk in not yet i mean it's it's i'm truly lucky that they they're willing to come back and speak and talk and you know i think we sometimes forget what doug has has done for this organization early on he brought the energy he brought the excitement i know you've been through it a lot with doug and he's done he's done a lot and he should be uh a pleasant part of this history um you know i had john tortorella as a coach and he was a great coach and he really came here and changed things but there was a guy before him named ken hitchcock and i truly feel like he validated this organization and brought brought us to our first first playoff berth so i'm glad you brought those two guys up because they're two huge parts of history for the jackets i believe it was in november that they they sprung this on you they surprised you in front of the whole team it was a great moment it was almost um it was almost surreal you know todd sharok was had me doing the run around and pulling some prank on me that the cameras were following me for a day in the life of a retired hockey player in in the front office i will say he got me good and i bought into it and then they uh they surprised me with the video from john p mcconnell and then surprised me with my uh my family there and my kids came walking out and i don't like surprises dom so it was uh it was it was tough to take and i'm sure there might be a few more surprises coming up but uh i'm truly honored and humbled by the whole thing you look at your career you are the leading gold scorer in blue jackets history 289 i want to say do you remember the first one like it was yesterday i truly do and i i remember that night just stepping on the ice was a dream come true and then be able to score a goal against the chicago blackhawks original six and send the fans to their feet is something that i'll never forget you literally and when you think about it you're what 18 19 years old you come here you literally grew up with this organization and you made columbus your home what what has that whole experience been like for you growing up in columbus with a team that you kind of it was was the infant stages and you kind of helped it grow up along with you yeah that's a good way to put it i remember showing up here when i was 18 and calling my friends back home and they were still in high school or going to college parties and and it was different and i was um you know number one draft pick of a fresh nhl organization that was kind of looking for a face and and obviously um you know i think along with jody shelley we kind of took that and ran with it um it it wasn't always easy but like you said i had to grow up and and mature quickly in front of a uh an nhl fan base and and i owe a lot to the jackets fan base and they were they were patient with me at times and and we had our ups and we had our downs but at the end of the day it's kind of come full circle and uh i truly hope that that they know how big of a part they are in this number going up to the rafters even when you were traded you never left this was home why is that yeah well i think you know i left home at a at an early age to to go play hockey and then i finally got to columbus ohio when i was 18. and it was kind of the first stable thing i've had in my adult adult life and i fell in love with the city i fell in love with ohio state i fell in love with the golf courses in columbus um it everything felt right and it felt like a place where i wanted to spend the rest of my life and raise my family so columbus has always been home i left for new york i came right back after the season was over in new york and i was back in columbus and and i knew i would always be here no matter what you for the rest of your life will be blue jackets royalty um and and and you a well-deserved honor there's no question about it when you think about this experience and the fans love you they've always loved you you've had so many great accomplishments where does this one rank i can honestly say this one ranks as number one for me i mean i've you know i've been doing nhl stanley cup finals obviously i didn't win i've won two gold medals um won a world championship a rocket richard uh this is number one this one means the most to me this one is is gonna be uh up in the rafters forever and i i can't express that it's not an individual award you know it's really not it's one number it's one name but this is the piece of the organization that's going to allow our history to continue on and i i keep trying to express and put it into words what it means to me and it's next to impossible to do i think it's fair to say you love this organization you love this city you love the fan base how hard was it when you were traded yeah it was some of the hardest times um in my life and not just professionally but off the ice too i always thought i would be a columbus blue jacket for my whole career obviously the organization had a different blueprint than i envisioned my career going and we parted ways and that's the business side of the sport i wouldn't trade anything uh that i've done in my career new york was was incredible and i got to play for an original six and spend five and a half seasons going to msg 41 times a year it was incredible those times coming back were tough though you never like to get booed um at first it hurt more but then i realized and appreciated how much columbus loved their jackets and loved their hockey and i feel like i had a little piece of helping people fall in love with hockey with that said though you come back home and now you're back with the organization front office how happy are you with that so happy and i'm grateful for uh for mike priest yarmulke line and john davidson to uh to give me this opportunity to uh you know learn underneath them and learn what it what it takes to run a organization in the last three years i've learned a lot i've always felt like i've been a blue jacket so that transition hasn't been hard and uh it's so nice to come down to nationwide arena and work every day you were with this organization in the early days you were the face of this organization and many still see you as the face of this organization with that said you did a lot to make hockey what it is in this town how proud are you of that you know dom it's it didn't really hit me until i kind of retired and and especially kind of my tail end of my career when i got traded to boston and i remember sean crowley coming up to me and saying he had a poster of me in his bedroom and that's where it kind of hit me like i was you know i used to grow up watching matt sundin and idolizing him and now these kids in columbus were doing that with me and that that is a true honor to think that you know when i first got to columbus uh maybe there's a lot of new hockey fans and for me to have a little bit of influence on people falling in love with the sport that's another one that's tough to put into words of what it means to me but i can tell you it means a lot are you having fun in the front office and i got to ask you do you miss being on the ice do you miss playing and i got to be honest with you rick you're a kid to me but you keep drinking the water you're drinking you look like you're 18 still you know what i i miss it i miss it every day um and the tough part is yeah i've had some concussions and and kind of forced me out of the game and i still feel like i could uh produce if i was still still healthy enough but i'm i'm uh i'm okay with it um as for the the front office stuff i love i mean it's nice having a uh a team atmosphere um having the camaraderie with with a group of guys those are the biggest things that you miss once you retire you think it's gonna be hard to keep it together when you see it go up for sure for sure um you know i'm as a professional athlete you've always been taught to kind of you know keep your emotions in tight this one might be tough for me but uh you know my whole career is going to kind of run through my head when i see that number going up and it'll be it'll be tough to fight back the tears as a player you always did everything possible when you were on the ice to give the fans a win now you're in the front office and i know that mission hasn't changed has it you you want to do your part to put a winner on the ice uh this team's young but they're talented aren't they for sure and i i don't know if you can feel it but i feel like there's a new buzz around the uh the arena in this team and i'm doing uh player development now so this is a very important time for our organization obviously we've got traded some of our main guys away and got some draft picks and had a big draft last summer and now it's the plan to get these guys to become great professionals and great blue jackets and to have a to have a hand in that and to be part of that it's exciting but it's also a job i got work to do and i got to make sure i do a good job at that last thing i think it's fair to say you've always had a love affair with the fans here they love you like as i said you're royalty and you're always going to be royalty what's your message to the fans my message to the fans is is thank you for always supporting me through when i was playing great and when i wasn't playing great thank you for being patient i was a young kid that grew up right in front of your eyes as that 61 is going up i hope each fan whether you're a fan of me or the blue jackets or a fan of hockey can kind of look up and remember the greatest moments that they've had at nationwide arena or watch them with their family and just know that they're part of this ceremony

Channel: WBNS 10TV

Views: 230

Keywords: local, nhl, sports, watch-utility

Id: KNoGz_DhFwc

Length: 12min 5sec (725 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 04 2022