It was 25 years ago today that the Avalanche came to Denver to play

Where…did…the…time…go? Twenty-five years ago today, Denver got a hockey team. They were named the Quebec Nordiques at the time, and it would be another couple of months before they officially got a different name.

With today being the “silver” anniversary of the momentous move of the Nordiques to Denver, I thought I’d empty out my memory vault from that day, that time in general. My gosh, things seemed so different then…

I’ve told this part of the story before, but this is when it all became official: On the evening of May 24, 1995, I got a phone call from the public relations guy of Comsat Video Enterprises, a company that mostly drew its lifeblood from hotel movie rentals (how quaint, how dated does that seem, right?). His name was Paul Jacobson, and I’d been occasionally in contact with him the previous three months or so, after I was fortunate enough to break the story that Comsat had made a $75 million bid for the distressed Nordiques and move them to Denver to be the other winter tenant at McNichols Sports Arena with the other team they owned, the Denver Nuggets.

Jacobson’s immediate words to me were: “The team is ours.”

For the previous two to three months, after I broke the initial story, I was in a daily competition with the Rocky Mountain News for the next big development of the story, which of course would be: will Denver actually get the team or not? My competitor from the News was a guy named Curtis Eichelberger, a guy similar in age to me who wore John Lennon-style glasses. I had gotten to know him previously, when I covered a lot of prep sports for the Denver Post, and he covered a few of the same events himself, even though he was a full-timer and I was a “stringer.’ We would occasionally drink beers together at one of my favorite watering holes, Governor’s Park, and we even kinda-sorta competed for the attention of a girl we both fancied, who was part of our social circle. I won’t go any further on that particular story.

From the day I got that initial story on the offer by Comsat, to the day the sale officially went down, I spent all day, every day, working the phones to try and get the next scoop. And of course, in those days, it was all done by telephone – landline telephone. That meant busy signals, and leaving messages and sitting by that phone all day in case, god forbid, you weren’t there to receive a call back from someone you were trying to get.

Eichelberger was a very tough competitor and wrote some good stories in the lead-up to the actual sale, stories that made me cringe, as a hyper-competitive guy who doesn’t like to lose. I remember a couple of stories he wrote from Quebec City itself. The News obviously OK’d the expense of sending him there to compile stories from the scene there, as their beloved hockey team was in limbo. I kind of seethed with jealousy over that, as the Post wasn’t going to send a lowly stringer like me to Quebec City. It would have broken union rules and stuff like that. (Later, in 2001, I finally was sent to that wonderful city for a story on “What do Quebecers think, six years later, about having lost their hockey team.” I had an unforgettable dinner with former Nordiques owner Marcel Aubut at a legendary restaurant named Cafe de la Paix, and we probably polished off about four bottles of wine between us. I lived by the motto “work hard, play hard” back in those days.  Not quite as much anymore lol. Aubut gave me a ride back to the fabulous Chateau Frontenac hotel afterward and I’m pretty sure we broke a few traffic laws on the way too, but it was a LOT of fun).

Anyway, there were a couple times during the lead-up to sale going down where it looked like the Nordiques might stay in Quebec. There was talk of a new casino in Quebec City, which would fund a new arena. There was talk of tax breaks for the team to stay, talk of a group of new investors, etc. etc. Really, right up until the end, nobody really thought this thing would happen. It just seemed too far-fetched, that a Canadian city, one that lived and breathed hockey, would actually let their team go, especially to a remote American outpost like Denver.

But that phone call from Jacobson on the night of May 24, 1995, meant it really would happen. Try to put yourself in my shoes at that moment:

“The team is ours.”

I knew that life would be a lot different from that moment forward. Exactly 12 days later, I was hired full-time by the Post to be the new “NHL team” beat writer. Remember, the Avs wouldn’t get their official name for another couple months. With no Twitter in those days, everybody had to wait until the next morning, May 25, to actually read the news of the sale. Stupidly, I hinted a little too much to a guy named Jeff Rickard from The Fan in Denver, who called me that night and asked what I’d heard about a potential sale. Rickard went on to later (falsely) claim he was the one who “broke” the story of the actual sale, when really he never said that on the air – and besides, he should have credited me and the Post. Eichelberger got the same call from Jacobson on the night of the 24th, and so both papers had it the next morning. That was OK. I thought my story had more detail, so I was happy with that.

A few days after the sale was announced, the whole team came to Denver to meet the fans at McNichols and they all wore white T-shirts that said “Colorado NHL” on them. To this day, I am on the hunt for one of those t-shirts.

We’ve been blessed to have this team all these 25 years. They’ve brought us a lot of joy. Here’s to the next 25. And, let’s all raise a glass for the people of Quebec, and their loss. They’ve always been very generous to us, I’ve thought, when they didn’t have to. I mean, losing a team is really tough.

Merci, Quebec.