As we take the empty champagne bottles to the recycling bin and begrudgingly grab our gym bags, deep inside we know the inevitable is just days, or weeks away.  The New Year’s Resolutions we have made to give up drinking, or finally get back in shape, just aren’t sustainable. The general problem is that we tend to make our goals too lofty.  We can renew our gym membership, but our five-days-a-week turns into much less than that, and by the time February comes around our New Year’s Resolution is just a faint memory.  Giving up alcohol seems plausible considering the new year generally begins... Read More

The story became obvious as I sat down to write.  The Colorado Avalanche would eliminate the top-seeded Calgary flames in five games, and my fingers began to type.  Thoughts of Mikko Rantanen, Nathan MacKinnon, and Philipp Grubauer raced through my head.  Memories past were of Stanley Cups, Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, and Ray Bourque.  I would be sure to throw in Patrick Roy’s legendary playoff quote once said in response to an opponent’s trash talk. “I didn’t hear him because my two Stanley Cup rings were stuffed in my ears.” It was undoubtedly the story, the headline, the news of... Read More

With a ferocious run at the end of the season, the Colorado Avalanche pulled off the impossible and grabbed the final spot in this year’s NHL playoffs.  I doubted them, I wrote them off, and in all honestly, I didn’t write about them at all.  The Nuggets battled Golden State for the top seed all season long, the Rockies filled LoDo with big money contracts and aspirations, and the Broncos, well, this is Bronco Country, which is always news.  But I’m not apologizing.  Instead, I’m embracing playoff hockey, still befuddled about that end-of-the-year finish while jumping on that bandwagon. ... Read More

One of the difficulties of trying to write a weekly Colorado sports article is focusing on the biggest story of the week, and timing it within the deadline provided.  Follow that up with the challenge of informing and entertaining the reader in 600 words or less, and the problem becomes compounded.  Within the last ten days the Colorado Rockies had a playoff series, the Denver Broncos played twice, the CU Buffs traveled to USC, the Colorado Avalanche were five games into the start of the hockey season, while the Denver Nuggets were just hours from their NBA opener. And that’s just Colorado! ... Read More

The excitement of the Avalanche players was contagious as the crowd erupted and the final horn sounded.  With a 5-2 victory over St. Louis in the last game of the regular season, Colorado secured the eighth and final playoff spot in what has been a remarkable turn-around season.  One could forgive the doubters for being skeptical as the Avalanche were coming off a last place, 48-point season in 2016-2017. But now that our Colorado boys have made the playoffs, is there room on that bandwagon for one more?  Even if I admit that Saturday night’s game was the only one I watched all season? It’s... Read More

It’s over. Matt Duchene has been traded to the Ottawa Senators in a three way deal with Kyle Turris of the Senators going to Nashville, while the Avalanche receive a bundle of picks and prospects from each team.   Duchene was pulled from the ice in the first period after completing two shifts to be informed of the trade and was immediately sent to the locker room to get his things and catch a flight…. To Sweden… for the Global Series… Where his first two games as an Ottawa Senator will be against his old team. The Colorado Avalanche. Here is the breakdown: Avs receive Ottawa’s... Read More

The Avalanche had a quick start out of the gate with an impressive road record and home game that got many fans excited for the season. Now we are looking at a 4-4 record and currently on a three game losing streak. So what happened? Many things happened. For one, the Avs got thoroughly demolished by the Dallas Stars 3-1 in Dallas, and then went on to basically have the exact same game against the Nashville Predators with another ugly loss, losing 4-1. Then we had ourselves a controversy back home at Pepsi Center against the St. Louis Blues when a Mikko Rantanen game-tying goal late in the third... Read More

      Its just five games… Its just five games.. No matter how much you repeat it, something still feels different about this team. Through five games, your Colorado Avalanche are 4-1.   The Avs first game of the season took place in New York against a highly skilled New York Rangers club featuring “The King” Henrik Lundvist in between the pipes. The Avs were ready to sack the king’s castle however after they got off to a hot start. And who would be the first goal scorer of the new Avalanche season? Yep, you guessed it. Matt Duchene. After an offseason fueled by trade... Read More

In case you missed it, and most of us did, the Colorado Avalanche and the NHL season has begun. The truth is that I really haven’t paid attention to the Avalanche since they won the Stanley Cup back in 2001, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love the sport. Hockey players blend the perfect amount of blue-collar toughness with graceful athleticism. It’s the ultimate team sport in which an assist is as good as a goal, and sacrificing a tooth in the process is well worth it. But the sport that brought us Gordie Howe, Wayne Gretzky, the movie Slapshot, and the single greatest sporting event... Read More

  Many who witnessed the nightmare of last season assumed many changes would take place within the Avalanche organization. Among those, a franchise changing trade was surely incoming. Or so we thought. Matt Duchene has been the main story not just here in Colorado, but among the entire NHL as his name has surfaced and been on the trade block for the entire offseason. A surprise to many, as Duchene has been the face of the team since his draft year in 2009. Not just that, but Duchene has been an Avalanche fan his whole life, since the glory years of Patrick Roy and Joe Sakic when he was just... Read More