Book Jackets program celebrates reading all-stars

What does reading have to do with hockey? Everything if you're a participant in the Book Jackets program organized each year by the Blue Jackets Foundation.

Book Jackets provides incentives to local schools wanting to encourage reading by their students. Teachers can enroll their classes and participating children record the time spent reading over a specific time period during the school year.

The more a student reads, the more incentives they are eligible to receive. The top readers, called "all stars" were invited to an exclusive celebration event at Nationwide Arena in April. Readers who ranged in grade levels from kindergarten to eighth grade, took over the home of the Blue Jackets with their families to skate on main ice, enter raffles, enjoy refreshments and watch a Jackets road game on the jumbotron.

The event brought out families who found hockey through a love of reading, and Jackets fans who read as much as they could to take advantage of the hockey-based rewards.

Eight-year-old Marissa Colston of Dublin was at the Book Jackets event and put on a pair of skates for the first time for a spin around the ice with her dad, Remard.

"The reading was the best part," said Marissa who estimated her total reading time was in the thousands of minutes. "You got to read all the books and that was really fun for me."

Remard said that Marissa reads every night and the encouragement the Book Jackets program provided was awesome. But it was also a highlight for father and daughter to attend a Jackets game with tickets Marissa received for her accomplishments.

"I like hockey," Remard said. "I was very happy to bring her down for a game and skating here tonight was a lot of fun too."

While Marissa was taking advantage of her introduction to hockey, the Culver family of Pickerington was celebrating the opportunity to be in the home arena of their favorite hockey team.

Tiffany Culver and her five children were part of the 360 participants at the Book Jackets party. Every family member, dressed in the jersey or t-shirt of their favorite Jackets player, spent time on the ice and then collected some refreshments before settling down in the arena to watch their team take on the New York Rangers.

Twins Brooke and Cate Culver, both in first grade, qualified as all-stars by reading 700 minutes each as part of the program.

"It was pretty cool to hear about the program at school," Brooke said.  "It's really fun to skate here."

Tiffany said the girls were very dedicated to the program and loved having the opportunity to add one more Jackets game to the family's schedule – they attended a total of eleven games this season as part of a ticket package the family had purchased for Christmas. The children each take turns going to the games.

"The whole program has been pretty fun," Tiffany said. "As a mom it's better that they did the 700 minutes. Everyone in the family helped them reach the goal."

Cate and Brooke plan to keep reading, and to keep cheering on the Blue Jackets. They got to see the team beat the New Jersey Devils with the tickets they earned through Book Jackets and they were debating how long they could stay at the arena the night of the celebration before the party ended.

"We're going to stay and watch the game," Brooke exclaimed. "Well at least the first period."

For more information on the Book Jackets program, visit http://bluejackets.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=83672