Step Aside Detroit, We Are Hockey Town Now

My dad, aka my sports mentor, recently pointed this title out to me and I have to say, WTF?

The nickname was given to the Motor City back in 1996; attributed to a clever ad campaign by the NHL team often associated with previous league success, the Detroit Red Wings. But I was there; I disagreed then (unknowingly as a 9-year-old) and I disagree now.

I am known – in local vernacular – as a “unicorn”. A Denver native: born and raised and never left. Well, kind of. We all leave in our own way, whether it be for college, or slumming **cough** I mean ski season. As such a local, I know that there are few things more precious in this town than sports. We love our Broncos, Rockies, and now 3-time Stanley Cup champions, the Avalanche!

But I have to say that my memory has been jogged since this last win. I have been confused about the most influential hockey moment of my life within the Avalanche Stanley Cup history. And it goes back to that same year that Detroit claimed, nay, robbed the nickname Hockey Town USA.

I remember visiting the newly constructed Pepsi Center. McNichols Arena had been sold and either torn down or nearly so- relegated to cheap concerts and Harlem Globetrotter events. This new, shiny edifice offered the promise of a Denver rebirth – one where sports and excellence were paramount, and everyone wanted a piece of it. We were given the chance to tour the stadium and choose seats that would soon be the foundation for my love of the game. I went to those games with equal parts curiosity and fervor.

As the 2021-2022 Avalanche team has triumphed this year, I have been retelling the story of my time watching the playoffs when they won. I regaled friends and colleagues with the time I went to the playoffs and “the blood on the ice from the fights was incomprehensible”. I remember seeing more red than white. Well, when I looked back at those games, my memory had failed me. I had imagined it was the 2000/2001 season, when they beat the NJ Devils, but it was in fact, the 1996 playoffs, where the Detroit Red Wings played the Avalanche in their FIRST EVER SEASON. When I could smell the sweat from the players.

Adam Foote, Claude Lemieux, Patrick Roy, and THAT team was the one I watched. That was the team that made me a fan of hockey. And that was the squad who beat “Hockey Town USA” in Game 6 of the playoffs in Denver, Colorado. They went on to win their first Stanley Cup ever against the Florida Panthers.

A few years later in 2001, we did beat the NJ Devils and I made my dad a scrapbook with every single newspaper article and photo that I had of that season (pictured above).

This year has been something of an rollercoaster for the champions on ice. Nate McKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog and others have been lauded individually. The sweet, young, and unassuming Cale Makar, the Johnson’s - both Jack and Erik, and the controversial Cogliano all make up this rag-tag group of winners. I think they knew they would win this season and I saw it in one of the games I attended this year, where they were down by two points and a hat trick won it for them in the end.

To the Colorado Avalanche of 1996: Denver should have been named Hockey Town.

To the Colorado Avalanche of 2021-2022: We should be affirmed as Hockey Town.

Signed,

Maybe not your biggest fan, but certainly one of your OG’s -

Caitlin

P.S. The University of Denver hockey team who won the 2022 National Championship and the Denver East High School who also nabbed that title this season!