Fogghorn wrote:
Av, what is Denver like for hockey at the minor league level? Just curious, I know western Pennylvania had a larger surge of interest after the Lemieux Pens won the SC and those kids are just now hitting the professional level, even Dallas had a large upswing in kids enrolling in minor hockey back when they were successful.
Seems to me that Denver with it's climate, and the good college teams would have been a pretty natural fit for minor hockey with the interest around the SC winning Avs. Is there a passionate wave of knowledgeable hockey fans about to become adults in the Denver area?
The culture changed BIG TIME the moment the Avs came into town. Before that, hockey was an afterthought. I remember growing up it was just so damned hard to follow the NHL, especially if you were like my family and didn't have cable. There were minor league affiliates that came and went (the Colorado Flames, the Denver Rangers, and the Denver Grizzles--who incidentally had Tommy Salo and Ziggy Palffy play for them en route to the Isles) but they never enjoyed much popularity. Hockey was never a school-sanctioned sport in high schools until the Avalanche popularized hockey in a big way. And yeah, it wasn't just the arrival of the Avs, but the fact that they were an elite NHL team from the get-go that galvanized such a change. The Rockies were barely a popcorn fart in terms of Denver sports culture.
It doesn't hurt that Colorado also has two successful collegiate hockey programs in DU and CC. The Eagles have proven to be a great draw in Northern Colorado. The real test will be if minor league hockey can succeed in the metro area--the Avs' turf. The Rocky Mountain Rage folded pretty quickly, but that was probably due to bad location. The Cutthroats benefited from having their inaugural season start during the lockout.
I'd say yes, there is a generation of very knowledgeable hockey fans coming of age. The Avs will always have a very passionate fanbase. However, I feel like they're doing a lot of harm to this culture they've so artfully cultivated in recent years. It's a changed culture, but football will always be king in Colorado, that sort of excitement about the sport must be maintained somehow.
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