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The history behind the Columbus Blue Jackets' cannon

In all started in 2007 when the Blue Jackets were looking for something that would engage the fans and pay homage the soldiers of the Civil War.

Blue Jackets in-game announcer Mike Todd recalls the day in 2007 when he and another colleague traveled to Illinois to find a person who could make a replica Civil War cannon.

"There were some executives who wanted to have more of an identity than the team has. So I fly out to St. Louis then we drive over to Pontoon Lake, Illinois," he said.

The person they meet is Jim Olson of South Bend Replica Cannons.

"First, he fires it with gunpowder, and it sounds like a gunshot and it's pretty loud, and then he says do you want me to fire this with cannonball powder? And we were like sure why not. He fires that thing with cannonball powder and it sounds like thunder. We were holding the phone up for one of the executives of the Blue Jackets and I said 'what do you think?' And he said 'Holy bleep! Get that thing here now!"

Since then, the cannon has stopped the hearts of hockey fans and Blue Jackets opponents.

Nowhere else in the NHL will you find a more explosive celebration.

This cannon is a replica of an 1857 Napoleon Cannon created by the French army. It was the most popular cannon during the Civil War.

"It's actually a pyrotechnic charge made specifically to be fired indoors," Ken Sprague of Hamburg Fireworks Display in Lancaster said.

The company provides the boom of the cannon which is set-off by indoors concussion grenade made specifically for the cannon.

How loud is the cannon? According to Purdue University, it is equal to a jet flyover at 1,000 feet.

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