Meet your fellow Colorado Hockey Now subscriber: Grzegorz Kociuba

Welcome to the debut of a new feature I want to try. We’ll call it “Meet your fellow Colorado Hockey Now Subscriber.”

These will be mini-biographies of YOU, the Colorado Hockey Now subscriber, written by ME, Adrian Dater. How this is going to work is: you send me enough information about yourself in an email to me – adater@comcast.net – and I “rewrite” it to form a story about you – who you are, as much of your life story details as you want to say (occupation, life situation, some of your most interesting life experiences, how you became you, whatever). You don’t have to give your full name, but I’d prefer it. And, a picture of you, attached to the email.

I will then email you back, with a list of fun, “ask me anything” type of questions. You answer those, then I write it up. Why am I doing this? Because, as I said when I started this site nearly three weeks ago, I want to get to know my readers better. And, I want your fellow subscribers to get to all get to know each other better. I want a real community where we can actually talk to each other – not just me pontificating from some high horse.

OK, so the first Colorado Hockey Now subscriber to get to know is:

Grzegorz Kociuba (@grzegorz_ka86)

By Adrian Dater

Grzegorz Kociuba was 12 years old when, one day while leafing through PC Magazine, his eye caught an ad for NHL ’99. In the ad was a great action shot of Patrick Roy, in an Avalanche sweater, making a save. He went to a game store and played the demo, then bugged his parents to please, please, please get him the game. They finally caved.

“I didn’t know who to cheer for so at first I picked up New York Rangers but IT WASN’T it! Then I remembered that there was that cool ad with the goalie. I checked it once again, found a team with “A” logo and that was it. I became a fan. Because of that game and cool logo, I stayed with this team till today, and my journey will last til the very end,” Kociuba said.

Kociuba, 32 now, is from Wroclaw, Poland. That doesn’t make following the Avs easy. It’s eight hours ahead in Poland, so a 7 p.m. game at the Pepsi Center comes on at 3 a.m. in Wroclaw. Yet, Kociuba almost always sacrifices a couple hours of quality sleep to catch the game on his Center Ice package. In his younger years, before satellite TV became a thing, he would listen to Mike Haynes’ calls on the radio, furthering his love and imagination for the team.

His sister became a hockey fan, too, but preferred the Mighty Ducks. The two of them would be listening to games of their favorite teams on the radio, in the middle of the night. Yes, it drove their parents crazy.

“I remember the clock sometimes would say 6:45 a.m. I had to catch a bus 17 minutes later,” Kociuba said.

The Avs have had their ups and downs in the 20 years since he became hooked, and so has Kociuba. Well, that 2011-12 season almost did him in as a fan.

“I maybe watched two games,” he said. “But I was in a bad place in my life and did some stupid things. I’m watching now how this team grows. And this is special. My life without the Avalanche and hockey would be very, very empty.”

TAKE 5 (QUESTIONS)

What’s the scariest encounter you’ve ever had with an animal?

I met a family of boars…

Batman or Superman?

Batman FTW!

Give me five songs on your current playlist?

Father John Misty – Chateau Lobby #4

The Doors – People Are Strange

Iggy Pop – The Passenger

Jain – Makeba

Kadavar – All Our Thoughts

Have you ever thought you were going to die in an airplane?

Every time I fly 😀

If you could have dinner with one Avs player, past or present, who would it be?

Patrick Roy