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.
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