Blue Jackets push back start of tonight's game to 8:30 because of power outage

A power outage in the Arena District and Nationwide Arena delayed the start of Tuesday night's game between the Blue Jackets and the Anaheim Ducks by two hours and disrupted an area filled with restaurants, bars, hotels and office buildings.

AEP Ohio restored electricity just before 6 p.m., 30 minutes before the puck was originally scheduled to drop at the arena.

The Jackets pushed back faceoff to 8:30 p.m. and said doors to the arena will open at 7:45.

According to the Jackets, backup power operated the coolers beneath the ice, but the outage affected the remaining operations at the arena.

The National Hockey League scheduled every team in the 32-team league with a game on Tuesday, staggering the starts from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. It's being marketed as Frozen Frenzy.

AEP said an underground cable that feeds power to the Arena District failed at 1:06 p.m., causing the outage.

To isolate the failed piece of underground power line, crews had to go into multiple underground vaults that house equipment providing electricity to the area, the company said.

AEP said it will work throughout the evening Tuesday to make equipment repairs.

The outage affected an area roughly bordered by Neil Avenue to the west, Vine Street to the north, Third Street to the east and Long Street to the south, according to AEP. Huntington Park and Lower.com Field are not affected by the outage.

That area includes hotels and restaurants around the arena normally packed before a game and Nationwide's corporate offices. Nationwide said it shut down Plaza 1 and 3 and sent employees to work from home.

Dispatch Sports Reporter Brian Hedger contributed to this report.

mawilliams@dispatch.com

@BizMarkWilliams

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Nationwide Arena hit with power outage hours before Blue Jackets game