Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Avalanche Hockey in Heels

Last night was part one of the Colorado Avalanche's 1st Hockey in Heels Ladies' Night event. Out of curiosity more than anything, I attended this event with a couple of friends. We weren't really sure what to expect of the event as we had very little in the way of details for the night. We knew there was going to be a wine-tasting and a player appearance for this first night at La Sandia restaurant at Park Meadows Mall and that was about all the details we had.

When we arrived, we were given a brochure with 'Hockey 101' facts and a 'VIP Access' pass. None of us were really sure what the pass was for as we were not really given any instructions on whether we really needed to wear it or if it was just a souvenir. Inside the private upstairs room of the restaurant there was a patio with a pretty nice view of the mountains in the distance and a table set up with some appetizers. We grabbed some appetizers and then sat down to wait for the event to start.

The host for the night started up by asking the ladies in the crowd some basic trivia questions about the Avalanche, such as 'when did the Avalanche come to Denver?' We blew through the questions pretty quickly as it was apparent that this crowd really knew their hockey facts. It seemed to us that they weren't really prepared for the ladies to actually know their stuff and that they had planned on taking some time to go over the hockey 101 information. Since that was unnecessary, they moved on to the player appearance of the night, Kyle Quincey.

Kyle introduced himself and talked a little bit about how he got his start in hockey, and how he came to the NHL. He was original drafted by the Detroit Red Wings, which of course received a chorus of boos. At one point, he mentioned that he liked to call the city 'Detroilet', which went over quite well with the crowd. He talked about how he won the Stanley Cup with Detroit during his first year with them and then how he went to Los Angeles after Detroit waived him. Afterwards, there was an open Q&A session with the crowd for a few minutes. One nice thing that came during the Q&A was that at one point he gave Peter Budaj a lot of credit for being a good, hardworking goaltender who was really good at communicating with this teammates.

Following the Q&A there was some free time to enjoy more appetizers, do some wine-tasting and a chance to get an autograph from Kyle Quincey and/or have your picture taken with him. This went on for around half an hour and then they gave away some prizes that everyone entered to win when they first came in. The prizes given away included: a couple pairs of tickets to a future Avs game, a couple gift certificates, a Matt Duchene signed puck, and a 2 night stay at a hotel in Vail. Kyle picked the names from the jar, but hilariously wouldn't read most of them aloud as he was apparently afraid of mis-pronouncing the names. He would pull a name out, read it and then hand it over to someone else to read aloud.

After the prizes were given out, the night was basically over and everyone was given a gift bag from Park Meadows on the way out. The bags included a coupon book for Park Meadows, a keychain, and some perfume samples among other things. The night ended about a half an hour earlier than planned, but apparently their plans were derailed when the women in the group actually knew about hockey. The overall opinion I heard was that the night was not bad, but a little bit disappointing that only one player came.


In the end, maybe they were little bit unprepared, but this is their first time doing this event. It was interesting to hear from Kyle Quincey in that kind of setting and hear his opinions on things. It was a little disappointing that it was only one player and the event ended earlier than planned. Still, I'll give the Avs a little bit of credit for trying something new and attempting to get more fans interested in the game, which is better than their general policy in the past of doing as little as possible. There is still the night of the game on March 31st in which we will be going to the club level restaurant in the Pepsi Center prior to the game and having another wine-tasting and player appearance.

There is room for improvement and maybe next year they'll do it again and do a better job of it. And hey, at least the event didn't cost a fortune. $30/person gets you upper level seats for the game and $65/person gets you lower level seats to the game. By the way, if you are interested in the March 31st game and doing the pre-game wine-tasting and player appearance, you can still get tickets by calling 303-405-1376.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Ouch

Haven't blogged much lately, but there hasn't been a whole lot to say about the Avs. Since their 6 game winning streak in mid-December the team has gone a dismal 6-21-4. That's right, after winning 6 games in a row, the Avs have since won only 6 games since December 19th (the last win of that 6 game streak). During this streak we also saw Peter Forsberg attempt his NHL comeback and only manage to play in 2 road games before finally announcing his retirement.

After being one of the top scoring teams in the NHL for the first part of the season, the Avs have turned into the most-scored upon team in the league (they have allowed 229 goals, more than any other team). The trade deadline saw goaltender Craig Anderson packing his bags, which was probably a positive since many were questioning whether Anderson wanted to be in Colorado (and given his pretty good play since being traded, I think the answer to that is apparent). They also traded away young talent in Chris Stewart and Kevin Shattenkirk while getting Erik Johnson and Jay McClement in return. The trade may not be horrible in the long run, but it made lots of fans question if the 'rebuild from within' plan the Avs had was being given up on.

Anyone still watching the team knows that they have failed to consistently put a full 60 minute effort into a game for a long time. They either come out slow and fail to "start a game on time" as Coach Sacco likes to put it or they start fine and quit in the middle of the game. It's quite disheartening as a fan to see the team just completely quit mid-game. These are supposed to be professional athletes who shouldn't just give up when things aren't going right. Fans have blamed the injuries, the players, the coaches, the management and ownership for the teams' troubles, but none of us can say for sure where things went so horribly awry.

I can't speak for all Avs fans, but I'm sure a lot of you out there agree, this has been the single most frustrating and upsetting period of time ever for me as a fan. I can handle the team losing as long as they are at least putting in an effort. I can't take it when the team gives up mid-game or comes out unprepared for the game at the start. The problems this team has are many, but the solutions are not simple. All of the players who have injuries can't be magically healed and even if they could be, it's not certain that it would fix things.

Perhaps the answer lies in getting rid of the head coach. The Avs did better last year with Joe Sacco at the helm than was expected of them, however this success probably was not just because of Sacco's coaching. The Avs had a lot of young talented players have breakout seasons last year. It could be that they're having a collective sophomore slump this year. However, it could be that the team is just not responding to their coach's methods.

Sacco has a reputation for benching players he feels are not performing up to their potential. He even sends players to the minors as a wake-up call. Both methods have shown success in the past (Chris Stewart came back from the minors last year and was great afterwards), but his methods probably don't work for every player. The team says that he will be kept on through next year, so if the team gets healthy in the off-season we will see what Sacco can really do as a coach.

Obviously something has to change because the Avs have been downright horrible lately. The playoffs are out of the question at this point this season. It's not too late to try and at least salvage some pride though. It's awful watching the team lose game after game and not even putting in an effort most of the time. It's completely unacceptable for a team to play the way the Avs have been lately and even the players say that when interviewed, but then it's the same thing night after night on the ice.

They have put in a few decent efforts lately, but they need to put in a good effort every night. Then maybe things will start going their way more. If you don't try, things will just not go your way and only get worse and worse as we have seen. Maybe there's some bad luck involved for the Avs with all their injuries, but that doesn't explain the pitiful effort the team has been putting forth of late.