Building the Bridge: Lauren Rodolitz’s Journey From Michigan Hockey to the Blue Jackets

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Interview by Holly Arend | August 17 2026

Before she was capturing player walk-ins, planning social media campaigns and racing from the tunnel to the press box on game nights, Lauren Rodolitz was a kid riding the train from Long Island to Penn Station with her family.

New York Rangers games were a ritual. Her family would pull on their jerseys, join the rush of fans headed into the city and make a night of it at Madison Square Garden.

“A night at MSG was more than just hockey,” Rodolitz said. “It was a staple, a routine and a bonding experience for my family.”

The details of those nights still stay with her: the familiar faces around their seats, the family predictions about whether there would be a fight and the roar of the crowd on the walk back toward Penn Station after a win. Somewhere in those moments, hockey became more than a game

Rodolitz was born into a Rangers family. Her grandfather was one of the team’s longtime season-ticket holders before the tickets were passed down to her dad. Hockey was always part of the household, whether it was a trip into the city or dinner in front of the television on game night.

As she got older, though, she began paying attention to more than the action on the ice.

She remembered the people around her family’s seats, the predictions about whether there would be a fight and the feeling of walking toward Penn Station after a big win.

The stories that stayed with her were not always the goals or the final score. They were the pieces of the game that made people care about it in the first place.

“Sports hold some of the most powerful stories,” Rodolitz said. “I began to love understanding why sports mattered to the people watching just as much as I loved what was happening on the ice.”

That interest in people and storytelling followed her beyond the rink.

Rodolitz grew up as an all-star cheerleader before competing at the high school level and cheering on the sidelines for football and basketball. The experience taught her how much a crowd can shape a moment and how creativity can change the way an audience responds.

Cheerleading also gave her a sense of confidence that later became important in a field where she often had to walk into a room, introduce an idea and ask athletes to trust her with it.

“It was one of my first experiences understanding the power of making a moment,” she said. “I learned that the way you present something can completely change how people experience it.”

By high school, she knew she wanted to do something creative, even if she was not yet sure what that would look like. She took business classes and, during her senior year, joined Virtual Enterprise, a two-period course where students created and operated their own company.

Her class built a sleep pod company called NAPR.

Rodolitz served as chief marketing officer, helping run the company’s website and social media accounts while creating videos, graphics, advertisements and trade show displays.

It was the first time she saw how closely creativity and strategy could work together.

“I wasn’t just creating content for the sake of making something look good,” Rodolitz said. “I was creating with a purpose.”

She arrived at the University of Michigan as a communications major, still figuring out where that purpose might take her. Michigan had always been her dream school.

Her dad attended the university, and the friendships and traditions that came from his time in Ann Arbor became part of Rodolitz’s childhood, too.

She had grown up singing the fight song, visiting campus and treating red as an off-limits color during the week of the Michigan-Ohio State game. When she received her acceptance letter, she said her entire family cried.

But she still had not connected her love of creativity with her love of sports.

That changed during the summer after Michigan Hockey announced that several of its biggest names, including Luke Hughes, Owen Power and Kent Johnson, would return for another season. Rodolitz sent the post to her dad, excited that they would get to watch the players at Michigan before they went to the National Hockey League (NHL).

Her dad joked back with a question that changed everything.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if you were the one posting that?”

Rodolitz had not considered that a person could build a career running a sports team’s social media. At the time, she said, the people behind team accounts were not as visible as they are now. The content was there, but the creators behind it were not always part of the conversation.

After her dad’s comment, she spent hours researching careers in sports and looking for a way into Michigan Hockey. She found the email address for Kristy McNeil, the team’s sports information director, and sent a message asking whether there might be an internship, shadowing opportunity or even a chance to talk.

A month and a half later, McNeil replied.

Michigan Hockey had a TikTok username but no posts, no followers and no one specifically running the account. McNeil had one question for Rodolitz.

“Do you know anything about TikTok?”

Rodolitz had spent much of the pandemic on the app. The answer was easy.

Her first video for Michigan Hockey was an edit featuring then-captain Nick Blankenburg welcoming fans to the account. Looking back, Rodolitz calls it “cringey,” but it was also the beginning of the work that would shape her career.

On her first day around the team, she arrived at media day without knowing many of the players or having a formal introduction. She was there to capture behind-the-scenes content, but at first, some players assumed she was simply helping with the event.

“I came into their media day and I didn’t know anyone,” she said. “I didn’t even get an introduction. I just showed up.”

Still, the experience made something clear. Standing behind the camera, she could see the humor, personalities and relationships that existed away from the ice. She knew fans would want to see that side, too.

Her job became more than posting highlights. She wanted to be a bridge between the team she got to know and the people following from home.

The process was not immediate. Michigan’s players had not been asked to participate in the kind of social content Rodolitz had in mind, and an early attempt at a question video fell flat. She tried asking players something during game-night arrivals and got only a few answers.

Everyone looked confused.

“We were like, ‘Ok, how do we have fun?’” Rodolitz said. “How do we get the guys to see that we want to do fun things, that we’re doing this for them?”

The answer came through a plane video. Rodolitz posted footage of players boarding a flight, and fans began filling the comments with jokes that forward Philippe Lapointe resembled actor Timothée Chalamet.

She brought the comments to the Michigan Hockey media group chat and suggested a question: Which actor would play each player in a movie?

The goal was partly to get Lapointe to say Chalamet. But when the players answered, debated and laughed through the question, Rodolitz saw something bigger.

The video took off, and “Monday Questions” was born.

Every Monday after practice, players knew Rodolitz would be waiting with a new question as Gabrielle Healy filmed. Fans came to expect a weekly glimpse of the team’s personalities, whether it involved favorite foods, sailboat names or an unexpected debate among teammates.

“The guys would come in every day and be like, ‘Lauren, what’s the question?’” Rodolitz said. “I wouldn’t tell them until after practice.”

As the content gained traction, the players began to see that Rodolitz was not simply putting a camera in their faces. The videos helped fans connect with them as people, not only as prospects or athletes.

That trust changed the work.

“They saw I wasn’t just there to stand and film them,” she said. “I was there to help them and showcase who they were on and, most importantly, off the ice in a real way.”

Michigan Hockey’s social presence grew quickly. The team became the most-followed college hockey program across platforms, while individual players saw their own followings rise. Fans brought Beniers his favorite candy after seeing him mention it in a video. They made friendship bracelets, recreated smoothie content and lined up at events with a familiarity that went beyond the box score.

For Rodolitz, the response showed that the content was creating its own kind of community.

“We weren’t just following trends,” she said. “We were helping set them and shape what college sports content could be.”

The role continued to expand. Rodolitz helped with game-night coverage, media availability, NIL, player interviews, recruiting visits and the behind-the-scenes work that went into an elite college hockey program.

She traveled to the Frozen Four, watched Adam Fantilli win the Hobey Baker Award and found herself part of a close group that became more like a family than a workplace.

Then, during her senior year, McNeil posted on social media celebrating Michigan Hockey’s growth and noting that her intern was graduating. The Columbus Blue Jackets saw it.

The organization encouraged Rodolitz to apply for an opening in social media. At first, she treated the application as interview practice. She was from New York. Most of her friends were planning to move back there after graduation. Moving alone to Ohio did not feel like a likely next step.

But the interviews kept coming.

The call arrived while Rodolitz was in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with Michigan Hockey during the NCAA regional tournament. An unfamiliar number called twice, and she ignored it both times, assuming it was spam. Then she received a text from a Blue Jackets representative asking her to call back.

“I remember freaking out,” Rodolitz said. “I was like, ‘Wait, did I just get a job, or is she telling me I didn’t get a job?’”

She called back and received the offer.

After calling her parents, she asked McNeil to come to her hotel room so she could share the news in person. Later, Michigan hockey coach Brandon Naurato announced it to the team. The players cheered, clapped and urged her to give a speech.

The moment confirmed what Rodolitz had felt throughout her time in Ann Arbor. The content worked because the relationships behind it were real.

“I had started this internship with Michigan Hockey wanting to create content that made people feel connected to the team,” she said. “Somewhere along the way, I found lifelong friendships, a million memories and a community that became so much more than a workplace.”

Taking the job still meant leaving nearly everything familiar behind.

Rodolitz moved to Columbus after graduation, away from her parents, her twin sister and the group of friends she had known since childhood.

She had visited Ohio only briefly with Michigan Hockey. Now, she was starting her professional career in a new city, working for an NHL team and trying to build a life of her own.

“I’ve never been so terrified and anxious in my life, to be honest,” she said.

The adjustment was eased by people around the organization, including former Michigan players Kent Johnson and Blankenburg. But Rodolitz still had to learn the pace and scale of the NHL, where social media exists alongside marketing, corporate partnerships, community initiatives, sponsor obligations and the demands of an 82-game season.

She also became the first social media staff member to travel full time with the Blue Jackets, taking on a role that did not come with a set blueprint.

Her first major event came only weeks after she started, when Columbus held the third overall pick in the 2023 NHL draft. Rodolitz was sent to Nashville to help capture the moment.

She waited in the tunnel as the first two picks were made. When the Blue Jackets selected Fantilli, a player she had worked with at Michigan, the uncertainty of her first weeks in the NHL began to fade.

The next day, Columbus selected another former Wolverine, Gavin Brindley.

“It was my ‘I’ve got this’ reminder,” Rodolitz said. “I knew what I was doing. I was hired and I was there for a reason.”

Today, Rodolitz’s role with the Blue Jackets includes everything from player walk-ins and warmups to live game coverage, social posts, theme-night content and community events. On a home game night, she can start in the office during morning skate and work until after 11 p.m.

Her focus, however, remains close to the idea that first motivated her at Michigan: show fans the people behind the jerseys.

In Columbus, that has meant adapting the social concepts she helped build at Michigan for a professional team, where player schedules, individual comfort levels and organizational priorities all shape what can happen on camera. With time, familiarity and trust, Rodolitz said players, staff and management have bought into finding new ways to grow the content while keeping it authentic to the people it features.

A player might be known as quiet, but Rodolitz can frame a question that lets teammates reveal he is the group’s biggest prankster. A road trip can become a way to show a player returning to his home country. A bobblehead promotion can become a chance to highlight someone’s sense of humor.

The goal is not simply to fill a feed. It is to make a fan feel like they know the team a little better.

Her personal TikTok has become another part of that work. At first, she and Michigan Hockey co-intern Maggie Pilibosian filmed each other for fun, creating a digital record of the games, travel and friendship they were experiencing. As her following grew, the account became a community that connected her with Michigan and Blue Jackets fans, fellow sports creators and aspiring professionals trying to picture a place for themselves in the industry. It also helped her realize the account could show people a path into sports that she had not known existed when she was younger.

“If I had someone like me when I was in high school that I had followed on Instagram or TikTok, I think I would have started my career in sports so much earlier,” she said.

Now, she receives messages from students, aspiring creators and young women interested in sports. She has spoken with students, taken calls about career paths and met people at games who recognize her from the content she once made simply because she enjoyed it.

Rodolitz did not find hockey through a perfectly mapped-out plan. Her story began with family train rides to Madison Square Garden, grew through a spontaneous message to Michigan Hockey and continued with a leap into a city she did not yet know.

The work has changed since those early Rangers games, but the reason behind it has stayed the same. Hockey was always about the people around it.

Rodolitz just found a way to help more people see them.

Interview by Holly Arend | August 17 2026

Before she was capturing player walk-ins, planning social media campaigns and racing from the tunnel to the press box on game nights, Lauren Rodolitz was a kid riding the train from Long Island to Penn Station with her family.

New York Rangers games were a ritual. Her family would pull on their jerseys, join the rush of fans headed into the city and make a night of it at Madison Square Garden.

“A night at MSG was more than just hockey,” Rodolitz said. “It was a staple, a routine and a bonding experience for my family.”

The details of those nights still stay with her: the familiar faces around their seats, the family predictions about whether there would be a fight and the roar of the crowd on the walk back toward Penn Station after a win. Somewhere in those moments, hockey became more than a game

Rodolitz was born into a Rangers family. Her grandfather was one of the team’s longtime season-ticket holders before the tickets were passed down to her dad. Hockey was always part of the household, whether it was a trip into the city or dinner in front of the television on game night.

As she got older, though, she began paying attention to more than the action on the ice.

She remembered the people around her family’s seats, the predictions about whether there would be a fight and the feeling of walking toward Penn Station after a big win.

The stories that stayed with her were not always the goals or the final score. They were the pieces of the game that made people care about it in the first place.

“Sports hold some of the most powerful stories,” Rodolitz said. “I began to love understanding why sports mattered to the people watching just as much as I loved what was happening on the ice.”

That interest in people and storytelling followed her beyond the rink.

Rodolitz grew up as an all-star cheerleader before competing at the high school level and cheering on the sidelines for football and basketball. The experience taught her how much a crowd can shape a moment and how creativity can change the way an audience responds.

Cheerleading also gave her a sense of confidence that later became important in a field where she often had to walk into a room, introduce an idea and ask athletes to trust her with it.

“It was one of my first experiences understanding the power of making a moment,” she said. “I learned that the way you present something can completely change how people experience it.”

By high school, she knew she wanted to do something creative, even if she was not yet sure what that would look like. She took business classes and, during her senior year, joined Virtual Enterprise, a two-period course where students created and operated their own company.

Her class built a sleep pod company called NAPR.

Rodolitz served as chief marketing officer, helping run the company’s website and social media accounts while creating videos, graphics, advertisements and trade show displays.

It was the first time she saw how closely creativity and strategy could work together.

“I wasn’t just creating content for the sake of making something look good,” Rodolitz said. “I was creating with a purpose.”

She arrived at the University of Michigan as a communications major, still figuring out where that purpose might take her. Michigan had always been her dream school.

Her dad attended the university, and the friendships and traditions that came from his time in Ann Arbor became part of Rodolitz’s childhood, too.

She had grown up singing the fight song, visiting campus and treating red as an off-limits color during the week of the Michigan-Ohio State game. When she received her acceptance letter, she said her entire family cried.

But she still had not connected her love of creativity with her love of sports.

Her dad joked back with a question that changed everything.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if you were the one posting that?”

Rodolitz had not considered that a person could build a career running a sports team’s social media. At the time, she said, the people behind team accounts were not as visible as they are now. The content was there, but the creators behind it were not always part of the conversation.

A month and a half later, McNeil replied.

Michigan Hockey had a TikTok username but no posts, no followers and no one specifically running the account. McNeil had one question for Rodolitz.

“Do you know anything about TikTok?”

Rodolitz had spent much of the pandemic on the app. The answer was easy.

Her first video for Michigan Hockey was an edit featuring then-captain Nick Blankenburg welcoming fans to the account. Looking back, Rodolitz calls it “cringey,” but it was also the beginning of the work that would shape her career.

On her first day around the team, she arrived at media day without knowing many of the players or having a formal introduction. She was there to capture behind-the-scenes content, but at first, some players assumed she was simply helping with the event.

“I came into their media day and I didn’t know anyone,” she said. “I didn’t even get an introduction. I just showed up.”

Still, the experience made something clear. Standing behind the camera, she could see the humor, personalities and relationships that existed away from the ice. She knew fans would want to see that side, too.

Her job became more than posting highlights. She wanted to be a bridge between the team she got to know and the people following from home.

The process was not immediate. Michigan’s players had not been asked to participate in the kind of social content Rodolitz had in mind, and an early attempt at a question video fell flat. She tried asking players something during game-night arrivals and got only a few answers.

Everyone looked confused.

“We were like, ‘Ok, how do we have fun?’” Rodolitz said. “How do we get the guys to see that we want to do fun things, that we’re doing this for them?”

The answer came through a plane video. Rodolitz posted footage of players boarding a flight, and fans began filling the comments with jokes that forward Philippe Lapointe resembled actor Timothée Chalamet.

She brought the comments to the Michigan Hockey media group chat and suggested a question: Which actor would play each player in a movie?

The goal was partly to get Lapointe to say Chalamet. But when the players answered, debated and laughed through the question, Rodolitz saw something bigger.

The video took off, and “Monday Questions” was born.

Every Monday after practice, players knew Rodolitz would be waiting with a new question as Gabrielle Healy filmed. Fans came to expect a weekly glimpse of the team’s personalities, whether it involved favorite foods, sailboat names or an unexpected debate among teammates.

“The guys would come in every day and be like, ‘Lauren, what’s the question?’” Rodolitz said. “I wouldn’t tell them until after practice.”

As the content gained traction, the players began to see that Rodolitz was not simply putting a camera in their faces. The videos helped fans connect with them as people, not only as prospects or athletes.

That trust changed the work.

“They saw I wasn’t just there to stand and film them,” she said. “I was there to help them and showcase who they were on and, most importantly, off the ice in a real way.”

For Rodolitz, the response showed that the content was creating its own kind of community.

“We weren’t just following trends,” she said. “We were helping set them and shape what college sports content could be.”

The role continued to expand. Rodolitz helped with game-night coverage, media availability, NIL, player interviews, recruiting visits and the behind-the-scenes work that went into an elite college hockey program.

She traveled to the Frozen Four, watched Adam Fantilli win the Hobey Baker Award and found herself part of a close group that became more like a family than a workplace.

Then, during her senior year, McNeil posted on social media celebrating Michigan Hockey’s growth and noting that her intern was graduating. The Columbus Blue Jackets saw it.

The organization encouraged Rodolitz to apply for an opening in social media. At first, she treated the application as interview practice. She was from New York. Most of her friends were planning to move back there after graduation. Moving alone to Ohio did not feel like a likely next step.

But the interviews kept coming.

The call arrived while Rodolitz was in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with Michigan Hockey during the NCAA regional tournament. An unfamiliar number called twice, and she ignored it both times, assuming it was spam. Then she received a text from a Blue Jackets representative asking her to call back.

“I remember freaking out,” Rodolitz said. “I was like, ‘Wait, did I just get a job, or is she telling me I didn’t get a job?’”

She called back and received the offer.

After calling her parents, she asked McNeil to come to her hotel room so she could share the news in person. Later, Michigan hockey coach Brandon Naurato announced it to the team. The players cheered, clapped and urged her to give a speech.

The moment confirmed what Rodolitz had felt throughout her time in Ann Arbor. The content worked because the relationships behind it were real.

“I had started this internship with Michigan Hockey wanting to create content that made people feel connected to the team,” she said. “Somewhere along the way, I found lifelong friendships, a million memories and a community that became so much more than a workplace.”

Taking the job still meant leaving nearly everything familiar behind.

Rodolitz moved to Columbus after graduation, away from her parents, her twin sister and the group of friends she had known since childhood.

She had visited Ohio only briefly with Michigan Hockey. Now, she was starting her professional career in a new city, working for an NHL team and trying to build a life of her own.

“I’ve never been so terrified and anxious in my life, to be honest,” she said.

She also became the first social media staff member to travel full time with the Blue Jackets, taking on a role that did not come with a set blueprint.

Her first major event came only weeks after she started, when Columbus held the third overall pick in the 2023 NHL draft. Rodolitz was sent to Nashville to help capture the moment.

She waited in the tunnel as the first two picks were made. When the Blue Jackets selected Fantilli, a player she had worked with at Michigan, the uncertainty of her first weeks in the NHL began to fade.

The next day, Columbus selected another former Wolverine, Gavin Brindley.

“It was my ‘I’ve got this’ reminder,” Rodolitz said. “I knew what I was doing. I was hired and I was there for a reason.”

Today, Rodolitz’s role with the Blue Jackets includes everything from player walk-ins and warmups to live game coverage, social posts, theme-night content and community events. On a home game night, she can start in the office during morning skate and work until after 11 p.m.

Her focus, however, remains close to the idea that first motivated her at Michigan: show fans the people behind the jerseys.

A player might be known as quiet, but Rodolitz can frame a question that lets teammates reveal he is the group’s biggest prankster. A road trip can become a way to show a player returning to his home country. A bobblehead promotion can become a chance to highlight someone’s sense of humor.

The goal is not simply to fill a feed. It is to make a fan feel like they know the team a little better.

“If I had someone like me when I was in high school that I had followed on Instagram or TikTok, I think I would have started my career in sports so much earlier,” she said.

Now, she receives messages from students, aspiring creators and young women interested in sports. She has spoken with students, taken calls about career paths and met people at games who recognize her from the content she once made simply because she enjoyed it.

Rodolitz did not find hockey through a perfectly mapped-out plan. Her story began with family train rides to Madison Square Garden, grew through a spontaneous message to Michigan Hockey and continued with a leap into a city she did not yet know.

The work has changed since those early Rangers games, but the reason behind it has stayed the same. Hockey was always about the people around it.

Rodolitz just found a way to help more people see them.

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