Looks like the salary cap has backfired upon the Avs big time... Losing Blake and Tanguay is no small business for the team... In other news, recently I saw an article on the Toronto Star declaring that hockey is a fringe sport in the US on par with Arena Football, which is not surprising given that only 30,000 people attended the Stanley Cup victory parade at Raleigh
I remember in Colorado, there were riots after the Avs won the Stanley Cup 10 years ago. The parade and rally was jammed packed. There were as many people there as the Rockets parade. Yes, it was Colorado's 1st major league sports title but still.
Denver and Dallas are the among the few cities that developed a successful fan base (especially when attendance to Stanley Cup parades were in the hundreds of thousands in these two places)... You folks at St. Paul declare Minnesota as the "State of Hockey" so fan support for the sport is very strong (especially when the Canucks visit Excel Energy Center )
They were selling out before we won the Cup though. The Avs got screwed over by Lacroix not completely understanding the salary cap. Hopefully this year they take their lumps and rebuild next season. I see us somewhere between 7th and 10th in the West.
you mean in the first regular season? yeah...the novelty sells tickets for sure. i'm not knocking denver...it's a GREAT sports market. but a franchise gets off to the right start with fans when it wins the freaking title in its first year of existence!
Anyone know a good hockey website where I can read previews and get caught up on player moves and what not?
TSN, Sportsnet, and CBC offer previews for Canadian teams only (not surprising since they are Canadian networks): http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/feature/?fid=10818 http://www2.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/preview06/ http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/background-nhlseason.html While NHL.com and ESPN provides a sneek peek on all 30 NHL teams: http://www.nhl.com/features/preview/ http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/preview2006/index If you want a decent preview, I would go to NHL.com and CBC for a fair preview Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts are the best of them all
