Colorado Avalanche Eliminated from Playoff Contention

The Colorado Avalanche dropped a 4-3 loss to the Nashville Predators, mathematically eliminating them from the 2016 NHL playoffs.

The Colorado Avalanche’s season is over.

It pains me so much to write that sentence. I’ve been writing the prediction that the Colorado Avalanche would not be making the playoffs for a week now. I’ve known it since Zach Parise’s goal in the 4-0 loss on March 26. But now it’s official. The Colorado Avalanche have been mathematically eliminated from making the playoffs.

It doesn’t help that the Colorado Avalanche lost out on that last playoff spot to our most evil nemesis, those selfsame Minnesota Wild.

It will be so easy to lay blame, to point out players who should have been better and systems that should have been more effective. Unfortunately, we’ll have a long off-season to explore all those issues, as well as to preview what we hope the next season will look like.

For right now, though, I want to just explore the special pain that accompanies being a sports fan. Every single sports team, from the Chicago Blackhawks to the Denver Broncos, has lost. They’ve lost big games. They’ve lost opportunities to play big games.

All of us who are diehard fans eschew those fairweather and bandwagon fans. Those fans who join up with a team when they’re winning and abandon them when they’re losing — that’s not for us:

If you’re such a fan, it’s highly unlikely you’re reading this post — the Colorado Avalanche have been too long without winning seasons for there to be any fairweather or bandwagon fans left in Avs Nation.

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When you’re a sports fan, it’s a special pain. We, as fans, have no control over what’s happening on the playing field. We can only cheer our heroes on. And they have such a propensity for letting us down.

Why do we do it? Why do we invest so much of ourselves in something over which we can effect no control?

Certainly there is a camaraderie in sharing an allegiance. There are the vicarious thrills. There is the mental exercise of trying to solve the team’s problems or predict outcomes.

People who aren’t interested in sports can’t understand our passion. They can’t understand why you’d cry because your team had been eliminated — or had won the ultimate prize.

Next: Avs a Team for the Future

The Colorado Avalanche have been mathematically eliminated from making the playoffs. It still hurts to type those words. It probably will for a while.