Support Your Home Team: Colorado Avalanche

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As the Colorado Avalanche prepare to face the divisional rival Chicago Blackhawks, let’s take a moment to remember who the home team is. The game is being played at the Pepsi Center, which is located in downtown Denver. That makes he Colorado Avalanche the home team.

Let’s try to make the Pepsi Center feel like the home rink for the Avs. If you’re an Avs fan living in Colorado, and you don’t already have tickets to the game, please consider changing that.

If you’re a Chicago Blackhawks fan living in Colorado, let’s talk. Basically, it’s time to convert.

Battle of the Captains

Jonathan Toews is NOT the captain in Colorado. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

Yes, Jonathan Toews is a capable leader. He’s a great player. I don’t think he’s very outspoken in the locker room, nor particularly articulate with the media. However, he puts up the hockey numbers.

As a character, he’s kind of an adorable dork, the guy so tech illiterate that his group selfie at the Blackhawks convention was an instant hit.

Toews is nothing compared to the real luster of Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog, however.

There’s the obvious superficial superiority of the fact the Landy was actually scouted as a male model and is widely regarded as one of the best looking players in hockey. And speaking of tech savvy, one of his tweets over the summer made national news.

He’s also gaining wide recognition as a phenomenal leader. NHL.com composed a Sunday long read about the 22-year winger, going into great detail about the success of his captaincy. At the core of the article was an NHL captain’s ability to both have heart and be heartless. Landeskog is the kind of charismatic man whom everyone in the locker room gravitates towards. He is also the kind of ruthless man who stares down a bench of opponents after scoring.

As an example of Landy’s captaincy, look at the value of his captain fight with Winnipeg’s Andrew Ladd. This is an event that many are proposing has turned the Avalanche’s season around. And while he’s also not known for being a fiery speaker in the locker room, he does have a reputation for answering the tough questions with the media.

Now hockeywise, Toews has some better numbers. However, he’s also playing on the Central Division leader. And that brings us to the real reason so many people here in Colorado support the Chicago Blackhawks — they’re the glitteriest thing in hockey.

Colorado’s not like glitter though — the Avalanche have real substance as a team. More to the point, here in Colorado they are the home team.

Colorado, Not Illinois

Let’s return to the point that Pepsi Center, being located in Denver, Colorado, is the home arena for the Colorado Avalanche. Those are majestic, snow-covered mountains in the vista, not a vast plain of rotting cornfield. People go skiing, fishing and hiking for fun in those mountains, not tipping over cows in the cornfields.

True enough Chicago’s a bigger city than Denver, more urban. More beggars, too. More crime. There are parts of Chicago where nobody goes if they can avoid it because they will be accosted or even victimized. Talk to a Chicagoan, and they are strangely proud of those aspects of their city. That’s all well and good. However, think about how good it is feel safe in virtually any area of Denver.

Plus, Chicago’s being known as the Windy City isn’t irony. It’s got the kind of wind that makes people go insane (which might explain their crime rate.) By contrast, Colorado is known for boasting 300 days of sunshine a year.

You may be thinking, “Yes, but this isn’t about the superiority of one locale over another.” Except it is — the idyllic locale of Colorado has a hockey team –the Colorado Avalanche. Those boys in burgundy and blue represent the state with low crime rates, scenic mountains and 300 days of sunshine a year.

I’m not saying you have to support the one (team) to enjoy the other (locale). I’m saying if you don’t want to support the area fully, it might be time to question if this is the right place for you. It might be time to realize that the road that leads from Chicago to Denver actually runs both ways.

Did I just say love the Avalanche over the Blackhawks or leave Colorado? Yes, I did, because that’s the true passion of being a die-hard sports fan. You love your team through thick and through thin.You support the local team because, like it or not, they represent you. You’re a hockey fan — yay! — living in Colorado — yay! It’s not like you’re stuck living in Minnesota. And you’re fortunate enough to live neither in a crime-riddled city nor in its podunk environs. You don’t live in Chicago, Illinois.

You live in Colorado. Support your local team, the Colorado Avalanche. This is an exciting, up-and-coming team with a winning history. And they are led by a good-looking, charismatic captain with a flair for leadership.

Enjoy Colorado. Enjoy the Colorado Avalanche.