Mile High Sports’ Sportsman of the Year for 2022 is not a person at all.
Following an illustrious list of individual Colorado-based sports figures who have won the award over the past five years (starting in 2021 and going back, Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Nathan MacKinnon, Kyle Freeland and Martin Truex Jr.), we salute an extraordinary year for a single sport in the state.
Minnesota bills itself as the State of Hockey, even with an obnoxious song of the same name.
“Hockeytown” is a registered trademark of the Detroit Red Wings. Whether that’s still true or not is out of the legal point.
In hockey in 2022, Colorado was the state champions.
In late June, the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup, defeating the two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning in the finals. The Avalanche’s decisive 2-1 Game 6 series was in Tampa, with MacKinnon and Artturi Lehkonen scoring the goals. Prodigy Cale Makar won both the Norris Trophy as the best defenseman in the NHL and the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. Captain Gabriel Landeskog, the Avalanche and their fans partied well into the night and during the public celebration [beep] a few days later in a packed Civic Center Park.
In early April, the University of Denver Pioneers won the NCAA championship, defeating Michigan 3-2 in overtime and Minnesota State 5-1 in the Frozen Four at the TD Center in Boston. Carter Savoie had the OT game winner in the semifinals for the Pioneers, who then erupted for five unanswered goals in the third period of the championship game — as Ryan Barrow, Mike Benning, Massimo Rizzo, Brett Stapley and Cameron Wright scored — to claim the title.
In late March, Denver East High, champions of Class 5A Colorado and made up of players from various Denver public schools, won the Division II High School National Tournament championship in the Dallas area. The Angels eliminated the Northport-Huntington (N.Y.) Tigers 4-2 in the title game. That doesn’t rain on the parade: National tournament participation isn’t universal for U.S. high school teams. Many of the best players left home to join other programs like Junior A. But the Angels’ championship was a significant validation of Colorado’s grassroots hockey, as well as an amazing story. East completed a progression from a messy combined city schedule to state power that for at least one season outperformed private school teams like Valor Christian and Regis Jesuit coached by George Gwozdecky.
(Photo courtesy of Brad Cochi/CHSAANow.com)
Elsewhere on the state hockey scene, Colorado College in Colorado Springs is also playing in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference with DU. The feisty Air Force Falcons are treading water in the Atlantic Hockey Association. The Loveland-based Colorado Eagles transitioned into service as the Avalanche’s American Hockey League affiliate in 2018 after a long stint as an independent franchise in the sport’s lower professional minor leagues. The club programs attract astonishing levels of participation and interest in state schools, including Colorado, Colorado State, Northern Colorado and MSU Denver.
In 2022, hockey has made significant strides up the Colorado sports pecking order.
With interest fueled primarily by the momentum of the Avalanche’s success in the glory years leading up to the Stanley Cup celebrations in 1996 and 2001, Colorado is a hotbed of participation. This is in everything from youth hockey to adult beer leagues and lunchtime drop-in games.
Growing popularity has long been one of visionary Avalanche executive Pierre Lacroix’s points of pride from the franchise’s arrival in Denver until his death in 2020. He was instrumental in the growth of the game. While the roots of the sport in Colorado run deeper than sometimes acknowledged, taking into consideration DU, CC, and various pro minor league ventures in Denver that preceded the Avalanche, the rise is evident.
Chris MacFarland, previously the Avalanche’s assistant general manager for seven years, was elevated to GM in July when Joe Sakic became president of hockey operations.
“Denver is a big hockey market,” MacFarland said before an early season home game. “DU is doing so well. Also selfishly, we walked up the road last night to see the Eagles. So you have minor pros, Division I programs, youth hockey.
“I have a young [son] who has played in a lot of clubs here. He loves it. With what’s happened, there’s excitement on the slopes here. Of course, you want to keep doing this because that’s the foundation, not just for Avalanche, but for the game itself.
USA Hockey, headquartered in Colorado Springs, is the sport’s national governing body. It reports that in 1990-91, between the departure of the NHL Colorado Rockies in 1982 and the arrival of the Avalanche, a total of 3,854 players at all levels were registered in Colorado. For 2021-22, the figure was 15,547, with the 2022-23 numbers expected next May. This, of course, measures interest in participation, which is only one component of the exploding public interest in sport.
In addition, many former Avalanche and NHL players have remained in the area and have been involved in coaching various minor (youth) hockey programs, most notably the Colorado Thunderbirds.
It was all the backdrop for Colorado’s NHL/NCAA sweep in 2022.
DU’s first five NCAA championships came in 1958, 1960, 1961, 1968, and 1969, all of which predated the NHL tenures of the Rockies (1976 to 1982) and Avalanche (1995 onward). From the 1995-96 season onward, the Avalanche and Pioneers won a total of seven championships. This year – 2022 – marked the first time both had won championships in the same season.
April 9, 2022; Boston, Massachusetts, United States; Denver Pioneers forward Cole Guttman (19) holds up the NCAA National Championship trophy in front of his teammates after defeating the Minnesota State Mavericks in the 2022 Frozen Four College Ice Hockey National Championship at the TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports
What follows in the next few paragraphs is a look at those seasons of the title. It gives an idea of how difficult the result was.
I am including the Loveland-based Colorado Eagles in the appeal because of their four minor league championships in the Central Hockey League and the ECHL. Also keep in mind that when Eagles founder Ralph Backstrom, former Montreal Canadiens center and onetime DU coach, gave me a hardhat tour of the under construction Budweiser Events Center in early 2003, I was thinking there was no way the Eagles would be a financial and box office success in the CHL. I had seen too many minor league franchise busts in the state. He sensed my skepticism. But Backstrom was adamant it could work because of both the growth of Northern Colorado and the growing popularity of hockey in the state, period. He was right. They were virtual auto sales for much of their time in the CHL and ECHL. COVID has forced some reconfigurations at the Budweiser Events Center after moving to the AHL, but the simple way to put it is that the Eagles’ average home attendance of 4,972 in 2021-22 was essentially 100% capacity.
1995-96: The Avalanche won the Stanley Cup; the DU Pioneers lost in the first round of the WCHA playoffs and did not advance.
2000-01: The Avalanche won the Stanley Cup; the Pioneers lost in the first round of the WCHA playoffs and did not advance.
2003-04: The Pioneers won the NCAA championship; the Avalanche lost to the San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference Semifinals.
2004-2005: Pioneers capture second straight NCAA championship; the entire NHL season and playoffs were canceled due to a lockout. There was a second title team, though: The Eagles won the Ray Miron President’s Trophy as champions of the CHL.
2017-18: Pioneers were NCAA champions; the Avalanche lost to Nashville in the first round of the playoffs. The Eagles won the Kelly Cup as champions of the ECHL.
2021-22: The Avalanche won the Stanley Cup; the Pioneers won the NCAA championship.
The Eagles’ other two championships came in 2007 (CHL) and 2017 (ECHL). Just a parenthesis: Oddly enough, their two championship trophies are named after two former NHL Colorado Rockies figures who returned to minor league hockey as founders and executives of the league: Ray Miron, their longtime general manager, and Pat Kelly, their coach for a little over a season.
DU is using state and local hockey interest in recruiting.
“We talk about the community that this is,” said Pioneers coach David Carle, chosen by MHS as College Coach of the Year. “I think what we see in our support is outstanding. It’s been a point of emphasis to come out of COVID in a powerful way and I think we’ve been able to do that.
“Even the Avalanche. I think the buzz around the hockey community here is a really special thing. . . We have won two championships in the last five years. Even going back to when my brother [2006 Hobey Baker Award winner Matt Carle] was here, they’ve won back-to-back titles and had an incredible sellout streak. Obviously, the Avs were down a bit, which led to a drive back up the mountain. I think we’ve seen a shift over the last five or six years in the engagement, the growth of the game here. The coverage you see, not just for us, but for the Avalanche, goes down. I think it’s a really healthy and growing hockey market.
Carle also raised the overall influence of Avalanche. Many Colorado hockey fans were interested in the game – and other NHL teams – when they moved here. But many others didn’t know the color of the blue line until the Avalanche arrived and quickly caught on. Those new fans are now debating who should be on the second power-play unit. They know which Avs played NCAA hockey and which ones played major junior. And even after all these years, they know what to sing about the Red Wings.
“It’s great when the Avs win, and when they won in ’96 and ’01,” Carle said. “You just look at the players who were born in that time frame, when interest was particularly high, there were some really good hockey players to be born, be exposed to the game and pick it up. To be able to say gosh, those 20 to 23 year olds now grew up watching DU and the Avalanche be great and that’s what got them into hockey.
The Avalanche’s MacFarland has also come to appreciate short scouting trips to DU, where perhaps as many as 12 players in an NCHC game have already been drafted by NHL teams and more will soon be draft-eligible or can be signed as undrafted free agents. at some point. The Avalanche have signed forward Logan O’Connor as an undrafted free agent out of DU.
“Their schedule has been good for a long time,” said DU’s MacFarland. “I think having them as a strong liaison program in the west of the country is great. As a kid you had to leave your home to keep progressing, whether to play college or wherever you went. I don’t think you’ll necessarily have to do that anymore.
Colorado-born players in NCAA hockey and also in the NHL are no longer a rarity. Going through the entire developmental path for all of them would be cumbersome, but this is indisputable: Colorado youth hockey has played a crucial role in their careers.
Among the top Colorado-born players in the NHL today are Anaheim Ducks center Troy Terry (24, from Highlands Ranch), who also played with the 2018 national champion Pioneers and for the United States in that year’s Winter Olympics ; plus Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo (25, of Colorado Springs) and Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin (28, of Erie, who played at Colorado College). Additionally, the Shore family of Denver contributed three sons – Drew, Nick and Quentin – to the DU program before Drew and Nick played in the NHL. A fourth Shore child, Baker, is a Harvard senior.
As of mid-November, there were six active NHL players born in Colorado. The other three included two sons of former Avs: Callan Foote of Tampa Bay and Brendan Lemieux of Los Angeles. Sixth is Winnipeg’s Michael Eyssimont, another Thunderbirds product.
This season, DU’s second-row center Aidan Thompson is a Fort Collins freshman and was the Blackhawks’ third-round pick this year. His path from Fort Collins to DU was tortuous, but not that unusual for a prodigy. In the area, he played on the Thunderbirds and Rocky Mountain Roughriders programs before playing at a Massachusetts prep school and then with the Junior A Lincoln Lancers. Playing Junior A rather than major junior, he preserved his NCAA eligibility.
In an extensive interview with me in 2018, Troy Terry recalled his first experience playing the game as a youngster. He was 3 when the Avs won the Stanley Cup in 2001, but there was a noticeable glow in the years since.
“My dad was just flipping through the channels at first and he stuck around for a while on a game of Avs and I was drawn to it,” Terry told me. “I was probably 4 or 5, and that’s what got me into roller hockey. I remember my parents taking me to an Avs game, and I got this plastic stick I used to play with around the house. That’s where it all started. I collected AVS match schedules and my parents covered the names and I could name anyone, only to their faces. I got very passionate about it. Probably when I was a Squirt, that’s when I started coming to DU games. You can’t go to too many Avs games because of the price and everything. These games were easy to find and all my friends went to them, so we all went together. That’s when I started getting memberships and became a pioneer.
The identities of his favorite Avalanche players weren’t surprising: Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg.
“When I was a mite with the Littleton Hawks, I actually played with Joe Sakic’s son [Mitchell] during the 04-05 NHL lockout, so he was around a lot,” Terry told me. “He’s been out on the ice a lot with us and it couldn’t have worked better. I went to his house a couple of times. I doubt he remembers it, but he put on goalie guards and I shot him in the driveway. It was pretty awesome.
Jaccob Slavin won the NHL’s Lady Byng Trophy for gentlemanly play last season, a significant achievement for a defensive player who plays with grit. He praises both the Thunderbirds – who were managed by Angelo Ricci when Slavin played for them – and CC as crucial in his development.
“Travel has been a little rough for us,” he told me of his time with the Thunderbirds while attending Erie High. “But we had quite a few kids living up north, so we all had to carpool. I remember my U-12 year with the Thunderbirds though, we practiced twice a week at the Air Force Academy. We definitely took some long road trips to practice, I guess you could say.
And what about the Avalanche’s box office in their league season? As many fans remained bitter due to the ongoing dispute with Altitude keeping most televised Avalanche and Nuggets games off the dominant cable system in Colorado, the NHL team was 11th in home average at 17,499, just over 500 under capacity. Had it sold out, Colorado would have been only sixth due to arena capabilities.
At the collegiate level in 2021-22, DU was eighth nationally in home attendance, averaging 5,070 in the 6,026-seat Magness Arena. CC was 19th, but sold out, averaging 3,559 in the 3,407-seat Ed Robson Arena. Air Force was 36th, with a 1,766 average at the Falcons’ 2,470-seat arena.
So even including the Eagles, tickets in 2021-22 were hot commodities for Colorado hockey and that hasn’t changed in the early stages of this season.
Have I gone astray from the premise of this story? That the Colorado hockey scene in 2022 deserved to bend definitions a bit and name MHS Sportsman of the Year?
Perhaps. But the bottom line is, the planets and pucks have aligned in 2022. Leagues will generate even more interest, and young athletes making choices now will be even more inclined to get into hockey.
As defending champions, the Avalanche and Pioneers are significant threats to repeat. And interest in hockey continues to grow, even to the point of sidelining serious and crippling debates about the Broncos’ backup safeties and clock management.
For that alone, Colorado Hockey deserves to be honored.
Terry Frei is a contributing writer for Mile High Sports Magazine. He has won state sportscaster of the year honors seven times — four times in Colorado and three times in Oregon — in peer voting conducted by the National Sports Media Association. His seven books include Horns, Hogs and Nixon Coming; Third Down and a War to Be Made; Olympic affair; and ’77: Denver, the Broncos and coming of age. The information is available on its website, www.terryfrei.com
June 30, 2022; Denver, Colorado, USA; Members of the Colorado Avalanche team and organization during the Stanley Cup championship celebration at Civic Center Park. Mandatory Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports
