50 Fun Facts About Colorado Avalanche

Which coach led the Avalanche to the 1996 Stanley Cup in their first season in Denver?

Marc Crawford had coached the same core in Quebec a year earlier, when it went out in the first round; within twelve months of the move to Denver it was champion.

The Avco Cup, won by the Quebec Nordiques in 1977, was the championship trophy of which league?

World Hockey Association. The NHL's rival folded two years later, and Quebec was one of only four of its clubs taken into the older league.

Which Swede did the Nordiques take first overall in 1989, the first European ever picked No. 1 in the NHL draft?

Mats Sundin. Quebec traded him to Toronto in 1994, and he went on to captain the Maple Leafs for 11 seasons and become their all-time leading scorer.

Which No. 1 draft pick refused to play for Quebec and was traded to Philadelphia in 1992?

Eric Lindros. He never won a Stanley Cup with Philadelphia, while players from the haul sent the other way helped the franchise he snubbed win it in 1996 and 2001.

Which name did COMSAT reportedly plan to give its relocated NHL team in 1995?

Rocky Mountain Extreme. When word got out, fans reacted so badly that the owners dropped the idea and unveiled the name Colorado Avalanche that August.

Which team did COMSAT already own when it bought the Nordiques in 1995?

Denver Nuggets. The Nordiques' owner had asked Quebec's government for a bailout, and when it refused he sold to COMSAT, which had owned Denver's NBA team since 1989.

Which Blink-182 song have Avalanche fans sung along to late in home wins since 2019?

All the Small Things. The team started playing the 1999 hit in the third period of home games it was leading comfortably, and the singalong had become its anthem by the time Colorado won the 2022 Stanley Cup.

At which Denver stadium did the Avalanche host Detroit in an outdoor game in February 2016?

Coors Field. The baseball park was iced over for the NHL's Stadium Series, and the old rivals played to the wire, Detroit winning 5-3 on a goal with a minute left.

Whom did the Avalanche sweep in the 1996 Stanley Cup Final?

Florida Panthers. Their fans had spent the spring showering the ice with toy rats after every goal, but the third-year club was swept by a team in its first season in Denver.

Which defenseman scored in the third overtime of Game 4 to clinch the 1996 Cup?

Uwe Krupp scored it unassisted for a 1-0 win, months after wrecking his knee in the Avalanche's first-ever game, an injury that cost him almost the whole regular season.

Which team offered Joe Sakic a three-year, $21 million offer sheet in 1997 that Colorado matched?

New York Rangers. Colorado had one week to match the deal or lose its captain, and its decision to pay up helped push salaries higher across the NHL.

Which rookie won the Calder Trophy for Colorado in 1998-99?

Chris Drury. As a boy he pitched his Connecticut team to the 1989 Little League World Series title, and he arrived in Denver as college hockey's player of the year.

After which tragedy did the Avalanche postpone their first two 1999 playoff games?

The Columbine High School shooting. The series with San Jose was reshuffled to open in California, and the Avalanche wore patches for the victims for the rest of the playoffs.

Which star defenseman did the Avalanche get from the Los Angeles Kings weeks before the 2001 playoffs?

Rob Blake. Colorado gave up Adam Deadmarsh and Aaron Miller among others, and within four months Blake was scoring in a Stanley Cup Final that Colorado won.

Which real estate entrepreneur bought the Avalanche and their new arena in July 2000?

Stan Kroenke. His first full season as owner ended with the 2001 Stanley Cup, and two decades later he added a Super Bowl with his Los Angeles Rams.

Whom did the Avalanche beat in seven games in the 2001 Stanley Cup Final?

New Jersey Devils. The defending champions led the series 3-2 after winning in Denver, but Colorado answered with a 4-0 shutout in New Jersey and took Game 7 at home 3-1.

In 2001, captain Joe Sakic broke with tradition by handing the Stanley Cup straight to which teammate?

Ray Bourque had spent 21 seasons in Boston without a title and had asked to be traded to a contender for one last try, so Sakic let him lift the Cup before anyone else.

Which internal injury forced the Avalanche's star Swedish centre out of the rest of the 2001 playoffs?

A ruptured spleen. It was removed in surgery right after the seven-game series with Los Angeles, and Colorado had to win the last two rounds and the Cup without him.

Whose record of eight straight division titles did the Avalanche break with their ninth in 2002-03?

Montreal Canadiens. Their mark had stood since 1982, and Colorado only passed it on the season's final day, after an overtime goal with ten seconds left against Anaheim kept the race alive.

Which Avalanche player won both the Art Ross and Hart trophies in 2002-03?

Peter Forsberg. He had sat out the whole previous regular season recovering from surgery, then came back to lead the league with 106 points.

Which two star wingers did Colorado sign in 2003 after Roy retired?

Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne. The old Anaheim linemates reunited to chase a Cup, but injuries limited Kariya to 51 games, Selanne managed only 32 points, and both left after one season.

Which Avalanche player's career ended after Todd Bertuzzi's punch from behind in March 2004?

Steve Moore suffered three fractured neck vertebrae and never played again; the punch was payback for his earlier hit on Vancouver's captain, and the lawsuit that followed was not settled until 2014.

The Avalanche's first sellout streak in Denver set an NHL record at roughly how many home games?

Roughly 490. The run of 487 sellouts began weeks into the team's first season in Denver and lasted almost eleven years, ending in October 2006 after several stars had left and 326 seats went unsold.

Which Vezina-winning goalie did Colorado get from Montreal for David Aebischer in 2006?

Jose Theodore, the league MVP of 2002, went 13-15-1 in his first full season in Denver and lost the starting job, then won it back and took Colorado to the second round in 2008.

Which Avalanche rookie set an NHL record with a 20-game point streak in 2006-07?

Paul Stastny. His streak beat the NHL rookie record by three games and, by four, the franchise rookie mark set in Quebec by his own father, Peter.

Whom did the Avalanche take with the third overall pick in 2009, then their highest ever?

Matt Duchene. After months of talk that he wanted out, he was sent to Ottawa in November 2017 in a three-team trade that brought Colorado four players and three draft picks.

Who became the youngest captain the NHL had then seen when the Avalanche gave him the 'C' in 2012?

Gabriel Landeskog was 19 years and 286 days old, eleven days younger than Sidney Crosby had been, and ten years later he was the captain who lifted the Stanley Cup for Colorado.

Under first-year coach Patrick Roy in 2013-14, the Avalanche went from 29th in the league to winning which title?

Central Division. Roy's team won 52 games and he was named coach of the year, but the turnaround stopped there: Colorado lost its first-round playoff series to Minnesota in seven games.

Which defenseman who learned hockey in Denver did Colorado pass on in 2013?

Seth Jones took up hockey while his father played pro basketball in Denver, and it was Joe Sakic who told the family to start with skating lessons; he fell to Nashville at fourth in the draft.

Which star winger did the Avalanche trade away in January 2025, only for him to knock them out of that spring's playoffs?

Mikko Rantanen went to Carolina, was moved on to Dallas six weeks later, and then scored a third-period hat-trick against Colorado in Game 7 of the first round.

Which coach, hired a month before training camp in 2016, took Colorado from the NHL's worst record to the 2022 Cup?

Jared Bednar had just won the minor-league Calder Cup with the Lake Erie Monsters; his first NHL team managed only 48 points, and five years later he was a champion again.

Which defenseman scored in his first NHL game during the 2019 playoffs against Calgary?

Cale Makar had played his last college game only two days earlier, and he scored with his first NHL shot, against the team from the city where he grew up.

Which center came from Toronto in the 2019 trade that sent Tyson Barrie and Alexander Kerfoot east?

Nazem Kadri. Three years later he came back from thumb surgery in the middle of the Stanley Cup Final and scored the overtime winner in Game 4.

Which two-time defending champion did the Avalanche beat in the 2022 Stanley Cup Final?

Tampa Bay Lightning. Colorado won in six games, clinching on the road, which ended Tampa's bid for a third straight title and capped a 16-4 run through the playoffs.

Which two trophies did the Avalanche's star defenseman win in 2022?

Conn Smythe and Norris. He had been runner-up for the top defenseman's award a year earlier, and in 2022 he added the playoff MVP award as Colorado won the Cup.

Which Vezina Trophy finalist left Colorado as a free agent in 2021, prompting the trade for Darcy Kuemper?

Philipp Grubauer. He walked away weeks after being shortlisted as the league's best goalie, and the replacement Colorado traded for was in net when it won the Cup a year later.

Which team upset the division-champion Avalanche in seven games in the 2023 first round?

Seattle Kraken. In only their second season they knocked out the defending champions, the first playoff series the franchise had ever won.

What did the Avalanche's original shoulder logo depict?

A yeti's foot. The furry footprint rode on the team's shoulders for twenty years, until it was swapped in 2015 for a 'C' borrowed from the Colorado state flag.

The bold metallic border on the Avalanche's 2017 Adidas uniforms honours which Colorado industry?

Silver mining. Silver strikes at Leadville in the late 1870s drew tens of thousands of people to the town, and the trim replaced black and white accents on a design that otherwise revived the 1995 original.

Which 21-year-old Avalanche winger scored twice, including the Cup winner, in Game 7 of the 2001 Final?

Alex Tanguay opened the scoring, added the eventual winner early in the second period and then set up Joe Sakic for the third goal in a 3-1 victory.

Ball Arena was known by what name from its 1999 opening until 2020?

Pepsi Center. In 2020 the soft-drink name gave way to that of a company that makes drink cans, Ball Corporation, in a deal that also moved the arena's concessions into aluminium.

Which lacrosse team shares Ball Arena with the Avalanche?

Colorado Mammoth. The indoor lacrosse club started out in Baltimore and passed through Pittsburgh and Washington before settling in Denver in 2003, where it has won two league titles.

Joe Sakic's nickname references which British Columbia city, his birthplace?

Burnaby. 'Burnaby Joe' grew up there as the son of Croatian immigrants and spoke no English until he started kindergarten.

Which Nordiques centre, later Washington's captain, was traded to the Capitals in 1987 for the draft pick that became Joe Sakic?

Dale Hunter went to Washington with goalie Clint Malarchuk, and the 15th overall pick that came back turned into the franchise's future captain and all-time leading scorer.

Joe Sakic's junior club, the Broncos, relocated in 1986-87 to which Saskatchewan town?

Swift Current. That first winter the team bus crashed on black ice outside town, killing four players; Sakic was unhurt and still finished as the league's rookie of the year.

The Triple Gold Club, joined by three members of the 1996 Avalanche, requires a Stanley Cup, Olympic gold and which other title?

World Championship. Two Russians and a Swede on the 1996 team completed the set the night Colorado won the Cup, and Joe Sakic joined them after winning Olympic gold in 2002.

Which Red Wing needed facial surgery after Claude Lemieux's hit in the 1996 conference finals?

Kris Draper was driven face-first into the boards, breaking his jaw, nose and cheekbone, and Detroit's answer the following March became known as the Brawl in Hockeytown.

In the March 1997 'Brawl in Hockeytown', which Red Wings goalie fought Patrick Roy?

Mike Vernon. The goalies traded punches at centre ice while a wider brawl raged around them, payback for a hit in the previous spring's playoffs, and Detroit won the game 6-5 in overtime.

Which Avalanche player set the franchise single-season record with 140 points in 2023-24?

Nathan MacKinnon reached 140 on the final night of the regular season and was voted league MVP, yet he still finished four points short of the NHL scoring title.

Which regional network replaced FSN Rocky Mountain as the Avalanche broadcaster in 2004?

Altitude Sports. The team's owner launched the channel himself in 2004 as a rival to the old network, so the Avalanche's games moved to a broadcaster in the same hands as the club.