High school students recreate the Nationwide Arena experience

Saturday night, Leo Welsh will sing "The Star-Spangled Banner," a cannon will go off for every Blue Jackets goal, and a group of fans in Central Ohio will get together to cheer on their team.
But it won't be in Nationwide Arena, as the Blue Jackets have traveled to Montreal for the game against the Canadiens.
It will take place in Nye Arena, where Nolan Nye and Michael DeLuccia have put together the best way to view a road game in the area. But to simply call it a watch party would understate exactly what the two high school sophomores and lifelong friends have cooked up over the past year.

Nye and DeLuccia go all-out to replicate the in-game atmosphere of Nationwide Arena, so there will in fact be a pregame anthem from Leo (on video) and a cannon blast for goals (via a newly purchased air cannon, at least).
There will also be a pregame Rink Report that breaks down the game, music played during every stoppage in play, and entertainment during the media timeouts and intermissions, just like at Nationwide Arena.

The two young hockey fans have always been showmen, and their interest in live entertainment led to them attending games at the downtown barn and asking, why can't we do this?
"We've been going to Blue Jackets games for a while now, and we've always just been like, 'Whoa, look at the lights,' 'Look at the screens,' and all that," said Nye, who attends St. Charles Prep. "Last winter, we were at Michael's house and we started joking, 'What if we had people over to my house and we did this?'
"It was like, 'Wait a minute. Why don't we do this?'"
Their first attempt in the Nyes' basement in suburban Columbus came last March, and tomorrow night's game against the Habs will be the seventh Nye Arena get-together of this season for friends and family. Through it all, the two have used creativity and a burgeoning knowledge of live event production to produce a show that is as close as they can get to the one put on each gameday at Nationwide Arena.
"I tell people, if you've been to a Blue Jackets game, it's exact," said John Nye, Nolan's father and a teacher in the Hilliard school district. "They try to make it as realistic as possible, and they put so much time in, too. Especially on a game week, as soon as Nolan gets home, he's straight down here. I'm like, 'Do you have any homework?' But his grades are still really good, so he finds a way to get it done."
As he said, what at first seemed like a whim has become something that has taken over quite a bit of the boys' time, as well as a section of the Nye family home. The production itself started with a light rig that Nolan received for Christmas, but Nye and DeLuccia have added elements -- such as the new cannon -- and become more refined in their approach over time.
The two work from a production room in the basement that includes multiple laptops featuring live production software, a mixing board and a microphone for Nye to serve as the Greg Murray of the proceedings. Upstairs, there is a food spread -- the taco bar made by Nye's mother, Melissa, earlier this year received rave reviews -- and place for tickets (yes, there are tickets available on their website; for that matter, yes, there is a website) to be scanned.
The show tomorrow night starts promptly at 6:42 p.m. with music usually heard during the Blue Jackets' on-ice warmups. Two screens in the Nyes' finished basement -- one a television, the other a projector -- serve as the de facto center hung scoreboard, showing both the game and other in-game production elements.

Pregame, that includes the Rink Report featuring Nye and DeLuccia previewing the game matchup, their version of the team's pregame countdown video with an accompanying light show, and the announcement of the starting lineups. The playing of Welsh's national anthems follows, and be prepared to hear Bush's "Machinehead" at puck drop just like in Nationwide.
During media timeouts and intermissions, there are in-game contests run by the two, as well as videos taken from the team's social media like a 5th Line Help Line segment that ran in Nationwide Arena.
When it's all said and done, there's not a second of down time for the two from the start of the show until the game is over. If it sounds like a lot, it is.
"At first my parents were just like, 'Buddy, you just have to understand this is not real,'" said DeLuccia, who attends Bishop Watterson High School. "But every day I'm getting my homework done real fast and then going to my laptop, and I'm like, 'I just need to get this Nye Arena thing done.' I'm always saying, 'Nye Arena, Nye Arena.'"
That dedication comes from a love of the sport and the Blue Jackets as well as the thrill of being part of a live production. DeLuccia first started skating at age 2 and played hockey growing up, though now most of his on-ice time comes as a referee at local rinks.
Nye, meanwhile, developed a love of the sport because of his grandfather, Rick, who has season tickets to Blue Jackets games. He's been at just about every CBJ game this year, missing only one to go north to see the team's farm team in Cleveland play.
The two were welcomed to Nationwide Arena for the Jackets' Kids Takeover game last month and had a chance to get a behind-the-scenes look at the production team and the effort it takes to make everything come together.
Now, more than ever, the two could see themselves working in live events down the road.
"I think that's something I would get into in the future, live production or something down that road," DeLuccia said. "It's really interesting to me what everyone does and how to put a show together. It was really eye-opening (to see behind the scenes).
"I would love to work for the Blue Jackets, but I think I could do concerts and things like that. I just like being behind a board of some sort controlling a live performance."
Nye agrees.
"I don't think I see myself doing anything else in the future," he said. "I can't think of anything else I'd really want to do."
Nye and DeLuccia plan to continue to host Nye Arena events through the rest of high school, and you can't help but imagine they'll find ways to make it bigger and better. One idea? Adding a Lexus Lounge next year, where fans can get snacks without having to go upstairs and miss the game.
Tomorrow night, they're expecting around 20 people for what they are billing as Throwback Night, featuring some of the elder Nye's teacher friends. Throughout the year, John Nye has the opportunity to listen to his son and his friend come up with ways to make the show better, then see it firsthand for each game.
"It's funny for us to hear them down here laughing, thinking, bouncing ideas off of each other, and see it all come to fruition," he said. "Everything changes from time to time, too, so it's seeing all the tweaks they'll do, like having the real cannon now.
"You really have to experience it."