Sometimes you just have to get away from it all.

As the snow continues to pile up all around us, never is the need to escape one’s gloomy surroundings more conspicuous. Birds and those with the time and means have already wisely departed for warmer climes.

The Columbus Blue Jackets can walk proudly into their Olympic break, owners of a 3-1-1 record since the firing of coach Ken Hitchcock. Of those Jackets not reporting to their respective Olympic teams at the 2010 Vancouver Games, many talked of tropical vacation destinations during their time away.

But for those on the coaching staff and in the front office left behind in a snowed-under Nationwide Arena, or traveling to small Canadian towns scouring tiny ice rinks for their next young talent, there is still a lot of work being done.

Many questions hang over the organization as they enter the two-week hiatus.

Foremost in the minds of most Jackets fans is whether or not this team has a shot of earning its second straight playoff berth after having dug an early grave for themselves in the first two-thirds of the season.

Their better play of late has stoked a level of excitement amongst fans and those around the organization, rekindling a sense of hope that may be as fleeting as our dreams of an early spring.

The metaphorical mountain the Jackets must climb to reach the playoffs at the summit is daunting indeed. They currently sit nine points behind eighth-place Calgary in the playoff hunt. Most believe it would take victories in at least 15 of the remaining 19 games to even have a shot. That’s a pretty tall order for a young team who just two weeks ago seemed to have been already thinking about those Caribbean escapes.

Of course, by mailing it in and prematurely quitting on the year, a good man and a good coach lost his job.    

New interim coach Claude Noel has tried just about everything in an attempt to exhume the remains of the campaign.

Noel, sort of the anti-Hitchcock, has been doing everything in his power to make himself stand out as a new and driving force behind this mini-resurgence.

The often dour Hitchcock’s best attempts at levity were limited to his pre-press conference opening remarks of “Fire away, folks.”

Noel, by contrast, has been described with words like “quirky,” “humorous” and “an absent-minded professor.”

Reports of his unusual attempts at motivation include requiring players to memorize quotes before practice, asking random trivia questions about upcoming opponents and even surprising the players by not attending practice, requiring captain Rick Nash and assistant captain R.J. Umberger to take over.

And then there is the fabled hard-hat that most of the Jackets regular beat writers seem so enamored of.

Following the Jackets’ first win under Noel’s tutelage, a 2-1 victory over the Dallas Stars at home, then-struggling goalie Steve Mason was at his locker sporting a bright white hard-hat emblazoned with the Jackets logo.

A sheepish Mason explained that it was a new trophy to be awarded to the team’s hardest worker following a win. Nash hands out the award, but it was clearly Noel’s brainchild.

And then there is Noel’s rhetoric.

Every post-game presser is peppered with admonitions to his players to “play with joy” and “free their minds.”

It’s not that I’m not against “joy,” per se. To be so would be akin to announcing distaste for puppies or rainbows. It’s just that in my experience, “joy” never fore-checks and “free minds” don’t stop soft goals or prevent own-zone turnovers. Discipline and sharp minds do.

Noel’s advice to his players on how to spend their breaks and gear up for a possible playoff run?

“I’m telling them to let their mind go free, enjoy their time away, and come back with vim and vigor and joy,” Noel said.

He seems like he would equally at home in the smoky haze of a Phish concert as in an ice rink.

He’s benefited thus far from the spike that normally correlates to a head coach’s firing and subsequent replacement. Will his shtick be enough to attain the seemingly unattainable goal of the playoffs? Only time will tell.

If not, there’s always a vacation in the Caymans to look forward to.