Match Report: AVALANCHE WARNING
Other than me (Elena) being a day one Kraken fan as all our regular readers know, and our unfailingly loyalty to ICONE DE L’EXTREME GAUCHE sir Gritty we don’t typically cover hockey here on the blog but when playoff hockey calls- baby we will ANSWER! And yes, by attending an Avalanche Game I made this entire venture (the venture of course being the fulfillment of a steinbeck quote, see footnote 1) a BUSINESS TRIP. That’s a write off!
Now as a halfhearted hockey fan who only watches the playoffs (shorten your season and we can talk!) I have seen plenty of exciting shootouts and I have seen even MORE commercials telling me about how thrilling playoff hockey is. But, dear reader, and I cannot stress this enough, it is way better than you think. That being said I still OBVIOUSLY have some critiques for the organization as a whole, but I digress.
The Background
Since we haven’t told you anything about playoff hockey, and you read this blog, I can only assume we don’t all know what’s going on, so a quick brief on the playoffs as they stand: Right now, we are in the east division/west division championship round (i.e. the one before the big finals). They are playing for the Stanley Cup (you may have seen it used as a beer goblet). The Calgary Flames flamed out in the last round, as did the Florida Panthers (a RAT THEMED TEAM), the Carolina Hurricanes (aka the Franchise formerly known as the Hartford Whalers) and the St Louis Blues. The Tampa Bay Lightning, aka the 2x defending champions (who beat the other florida team), are battling the NY Rangers (at the most famous arena in the world!), in as series no one expected to be as competitive as it is. And the Colorado Avalanche (excellent mascot but sadly they do not have someone dress up as a snowball, which is what I suggested, they have a St. Bernard as a mascot, whose name is Bernie, which is very lame. 7/10 for concept, 3/10 for execution, combined score of 5/10) face off against the Edmonton Oilers (we don’t support oil, we do support the best skater of his generation Connor McDavid, 6/10). They won the first game (in Colorado) and I, your favorite sideline reporter, attended game 2.
First Period
Ok there are far too many people in this arena, which by the way is called the BALL Arena (formerly the Pepsi Arena, and they called it the Can, and now that it’s the ball arena, they call it the sack, which is HILARIOUS ten points to denver), and our seats (not cheap!) are in (no joke!) the second to last row but to be honest it’s ideal because now I can see the whole rink and can pay less attention to where the puck is (how do the announcers EVER know where the puck is it is so small?!?!?). Mile High City, Mile High Seats, life is good! There are pom poms on our seats, which are white even though the Avs are wearing their cute little maroon unis (excellent color scheme btw) but I guess that means WE are supposed to be the avalanche. Everyone on this team is very blonde and very eastern European (but of course we started the game with the USA anthem and the Canadian anthem, which SLAPS), except for superstar skater and noted hottie Nathan McKinnon, who is JUST very blonde (he’s canadian, obvi). Something I notice (but do not comment on to my comrades because they are Serious Hockey People) is that this game looks a lot slower in real life compared to TV and, also, in the first game the score was 8-6 and no one scores in the first period so I do feel a little bit robbed? There are a LOT of shots on goal which doesn’t actually mean much to me. But then we (after weaving through HORDES OF PEOPLE) get cheese fries (with brisket) and beers (who, us?) in the first intermission (love that they call it an intermission- it’s giving theater), and my spirits are able to remain afloat.
Second Period
Ok BULLYING WORKS because after I lamented about no one scoring in the first period the Avalanche score THREE TIMES in the span of THIRTY SECONDS which is very thrilling! There is a band (SIDE BAR- sound off in the comments below if you have heard of hockey rinks having organs, I commented on the fact that the Avs apparently do NOT have an in house organist like MSG does and I was told “organs aren’t a hockey thing”, see footnote 2) and they lead the crowd in some song where we yell HEY HEY HEY after each goal. It’s thrilling! It’s also the best bit of crowd work thus far, since most of the cheers thus far have been “Let’s go Avalanche” which, let’s face it, is not the MOST creative. I am workshopping some tracks for them to work with in the future, because with a name like the avalanche I think there is a lot of potential for good cheers (think the Iceland thunder clap but snowy), and it feels like they are NOT capitalizing on that.
Third Period
Another very popular cheer: “FRANKIE FRANKIE FRANKIE”, since their goalie Pavel Francouz (Me: “is this guy czech? That sounds like a czech name”. Serious Hockey People: “yes”. I took a victory lap after this successful insight, but mostly because I had to pee) has so far pitched a perfect game (not allowed any goals). They also have a graphic on the screen that says FRANKIE SAYS RELAX after he makes a save, which is a good bit. There are a lot of penalties (and tbh have been throughout the game, thanks to NOTED VILLAIN EVANDER KANE antagonizing Avs players, also the Refs aren’t calling much except penalties, which I even noticed because I know what icing is and I watched it not get called. They did boo the refs though, which I don’t support, because it is a hard job!), and the avs score AGAIN (HEY HEY HEY). The DJ (not an organist, just a man with a computer smh) has switched to playing ONLY pop punk bangers (forty points to denver), including all the small things (which I guess they always play in the third period) and everyone sings, and it’s beautiful. This of course leads me to ask what famous bands ARE from Colorado (looking for creative fuel for my cheer rebranding efforts) and turns out, if you were wondering, a lot: One Republic, 3OH!3, the Lumineers, THE FLOBOTS (of Handlebars fame), the Fray, and supposedly John Denver (but actually he just had a house in Aspen. I would accept country roads being sung in the stadium or, more appropriately, Rocky Mountain High). Avs fans have started booing Oilers fans in the stadium (rude, imho) and chanting WE WANT THE CUP (a jinx, imho) but I have had 1.5 beers at altitude and they WIN THE GAME and frankie is of course one of the 3 stars of the game (as is my sweet prince Nazem Kadri who was the victim of racial attacks in the last series), and it is incredible! Equally exciting- three rows ahead of us there is an ALTERCATION between two oilers fans (very drunk, saw them taking shots out of mini alcohol bottles), one of whom has chickened out and removed his jersey (down to a Plain White T, who are from Illinois btw), and a bunch of belligerent Avs fans who have decided to pick a fight. While I was happy to watch as other drunken onlookers involved themselves (one avs fan: WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME??? other avs fan: SO YOU’RE ON THIS GUY’S-*points to oilers fan*- SIDE?!?!?! etc etc), one of my Serious Hockey People intervened to de-escalate (“This isn’t worth you going to jail for”) the situation so sadly we didn’t witness any blows (it was getting there though!). Even though it takes us forever to trail out of the Sack, and then we wait in the parking garage for another eon (and witness a man peeing out of his car, which is admirable and awful), it is, overall, a 10/10 experience.
The Avs go on to SWEEP THE SERIES, winning the next two games on the road (the last of which goes to OT and is a 6-5 thriller, which I wouldn’t know because I am back in the EST and I am of course sleeping). They await the winner of the Tampa Bay- NYC series (ROLL RANGERS) and are looking pretty fierce.
*FOOTNOTE 1: “For West is where we all plan to go some day. It is where you go when the land gives out and the old-field pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: Flee, all is discovered. It is where you go when you look down at the blade in your hand and the blood on it. It is where you go when you are told that you are a bubble on the tide of empire. It is where you go when you hear that thar's gold in them-thar hills. It is where you go to grow up with the country. It is where you go to spend your old age. Or it is just where you go.”
*FOOTNOTE 2: I did a little research, and organs have been played in hockey stadiums since 1936 (MSG, Boston followed in 1939). The first organ in a baseball stadium wasn’t until 1941 (Wrigley Field), according to Matthew Mihalka in this essay.
