The frustrated fans were counting on the team getting off to a fast start, and it didn't, so Monday night only 10,494 showed up in Nationwide Arena to uh, wait a minute. Fans were so disappointed the Jackets dropped two games to the New York Rangers and Minnesota Wild last weekend that they didn't show Monday? Well, maybe because it was a Monday.

But then how to explain why only 14,724 showed for a game against the New York Rangers the previous Friday, when former Jackets player Nikolai Zherdev was coming back for the first time? The Jackets were 3-3 then and coming off a win over Vancouver.

Or why there were only 14,680 fans for a game against the Chicago Blackhawks last night? Do the fringe fans think, as former team president Doug MacLean used to say, that this is like college football, that the home team is supposed to win all the time?

Embarrassing as it is to say, maybe they do.

"I got a couple of text messages from people saying they were disappointed in the game with Anaheim," Blue Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock said of his team's 3-2 loss. "One guy called our play sickening and one guy called our play putrid. And I said to both guys, 'We played a hell of a hockey game, why would you say that?' Well, because you lost."

Maybe you see where Hitchcock is going here, but chances are you don't. The Edmonton native is hugely complimentary of his team's season ticket-holders and core supporters -- he thinks they are as loyal and understand hockey as well as anybody anywhere -- but believes that the organization has done a poor job of expanding that base.

And you know what? He's right. There are a lot of people in town -- a lot -- who know about as much about hockey as they do cricket. It shouldn't be like that after eight years.

"It's understanding the process," Hitchcock said. "In Chicago, everybody was excited last year because they had (Patrick) Kane and (Jonathan) Toews, and that's what we have. We have Kane and Toews in (Derick) Brassard and (Jake) Voracek, and yet the focus is all on that end result. We have to build a way bigger foundation of people who are knowledgeable in the game and want to come."

There are other issues involved -- the economy is so bad that Anaheim sold seven walk-up tickets to one of its games the other night -- but Hitchcock's point is worth examining. The theory has long been that if the Blue Jackets would just win enough games to make the playoffs, the fans would storm the gates.

Winning would help, obviously. But Hitchcock's point is that if the fan base isn't larger, as soon as the team doesn't win, the fringe fans will go away. For the franchise's long-range future, that is a serious issue.

"The two games I've sat in the stands for (Ohio State) football, I feel like I'm sitting in the stands with 105,000 coaches," Hitchcock said. "Man, those people know football. Holy smokes. People are analytical, they're opinionated in their analysis and they're right in some of the things (they say). That's what we have to create, where people can sit in the stands and know what's going on on the ice and be able to analyze it. That's when it's fun to watch."

The base already does that, of course. It has eroded some as the Jackets have gone year after year without reaching the playoffs, but the die-hards don't go away. Hitchcock's "whole focus right now is the people in the city" because he wants to see a community of die-hards.

"We have to become an important fabric of the community," Hitchcock said. "From a charity standpoint and from a business standpoint, we have to become really, really important. We have to become as important as Ohio State football in this community."

As important as Ohio State football in a city that has panic attacks over close wins? That doesn't seem possible, but Hitchcock is insistent.

"I think it is."

Bob Hunter is a sports columnist for The Dispatch.

bhunter@dispatch.com