With the Blue Jackets set to begin their NHL playoff run on the road in Pittsburgh, T.J. Nocar is counting on social media to unite Columbus fans watching Game 1 on Wednesday night. His suggestion: #WeAreThe5thLine. The hashtag - inspired by the football reference to fans as "the 12th man" - was conceived by Nocar about 10 days ago.

Withthe Blue Jackets set to begin their NHL playoff run on the road in Pittsburgh, T.J. Nocar is counting on social media to unite Columbus fans watching Game 1 on Wednesday night.

His suggestion: #WeAreThe5thLine.

The hashtag � inspired by the football reference to fans as �the 12th man� � was conceived by Nocar about 10 days ago.

Within three days of its April 5 introduction, it was trending on Twitter.

�It�s really kind of blown up,� said the 25-year-old Hilliard resident, a student at Ohio State University.

�Everything has been moving so fast, I still haven�t completely processed it.�

The high-tech �rallying cry� adapts the �12th man� to hockey � given that, throughout a game, teams rotate four lines of forwards.

�If a team could roll five lines, they would have more energy,� Nocar noted. �So the point is: Our shift never ends. We have to bring energy from the beginning to the end of the game.�

Nocar invented the phrase as he brainstormed with several friends over a way to unify tweeting Jackets fans.

On its first day, #WeAreThe5thLine received 512 mentions, according to Jordan Mills, a friend of Nocar�s who, along with Matt Pfeffer, runs @TheCBJ Artillery, the Twitter account on which the hashtag made its debut.

On day two, the number climbed to 1,834.

By day five (April 9), when Columbus beat Dallas to clinch a playoff berth, the hashtag received 4,848 mentions � including one from Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Several players � including Cam Atkinson, Matt Calvert, Jack Johnson and James Wisniewski � have tweeted the phrase, too.

�I think it�s awesome,� Atkinson said. �It�s so catchy, and it�s exciting to see how many people are talking about it and retweeting it.

�The fact that it caught everyone�s attention so quickly speaks for itself.�

Part of the appeal might lie in the originality: Atkinson and Wisniewski hadn�t heard of a � fifth line� before; nor had anyone in the league offices, an NHL spokesman said.

Blue Jackets officials love how quickly the hashtag has spread.

�To us, it�s a sign of (fan) unification,� said Marcus Stephenson, director of digital media for the team. �For a hashtag to trend, it needs an involved audience. Whenever you see an organic hashtag like this come up from fans rather than from the team, it�s the sign of a healthy online community.�

Such a sign is considered important to a franchise that struggled to draw fans to Nationwide Arena even as it made the playoffs for only the second time in its 13 seasons.

According to ESPN.com, the Blue Jackets finished 27th among the 30 NHL teams in attendance, averaging 14,698 spectators.

Two years ago, the Jackets beefed up their digital-media efforts � hiring Stephenson and creating a department separate from its communication department.

Since April 2012, their Twitter followers have increased from 44,000 to 156,000.

#WeAreThe5thLine also continues to grow.

Homage, a central Ohio apparel company with stores in the Short North and at Easton Town Center, today will unveil a T-shirt bearing the phrase � the first long-sleeved offering in its history.

Mills, a 24-year-old Pickerington resident, thinks the hashtag is likely to be used more often in Pittsburgh � Game 2 will be played there on Saturday � than during the home games when it was first used.

�I think .?.?. (Twitter) gets more action for road games,� he said, �because there�s not 15,000 to 18,000 people in the arena who are not paying attention to their phones.�

kgordon@dispatch.com

@kgdispatch