Mile High Sticking
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Colorado Avalanche: The Minnesota Wild Are Not Our Rivals

By Mark T

Mar 26, 2016; Denver, CO, USA; Minnesota Wild left wing Zach Parise (11) celebrates his goal in the second period against the Colorado Avalanche at the Pepsi Center. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 26, 2016; Denver, CO, USA; Minnesota Wild left wing Zach Parise (11) celebrates his goal in the second period against the Colorado Avalanche at the Pepsi Center. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports /
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This may be an unpopular opinion among Colorado Avalanche fans, but I don’t think a relationship this one-sided can be called a rivalry.

Picture an 8-year-old boy who keeps getting into fights with their classmate. Now imagine that every time they fight, the classmate beats the snot out of him. Would you call those kids rivals, or would you call the classmate a bully?

Well that’s the kind of relationship the Colorado Avalanche have with the Minnesota Wild. Now, don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty of hatred between the teams, the players and the fanbases, but hatred and rivalries are two different things.

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A true rivalry is what we had with Detroit back in the day. Two teams evenly matched to the point where any time they played either team could come out on top. Stir in some controversy and a lot of hate and you’ve got one of the best rivalries in sports.

But the Avs and the Wild don’t have that. Last season the Wild beat us in four of the five games we played by a combined score of 19-9. That’s not a competition. That’s domination.

But what about the season before that? In 2014-15, the season series again went 4-1 in favor of the Wild. This time the combined score was 14-4. Another ten-point difference and another season of domination.

In our Central Division-winning season, we did manage to beat the Wild in four out of five games, but we only beat them by a total score of 16-11, then they managed to get the last laugh on us by beating us in the playoffs.

Had the trend of that season continued, we might be able to call this a rivalry. But it didn’t continue, and we as Avalanche fans need to stop living in the glory of that one good season.

Now don’t think I’m suggesting we stop hating the Wild. I personally hate any team that dominates us to that extent. But I also don’t think we can truly call this a rivalry until we start actually winning some games against them.

My hope is that this year, we manage to do that. I hope that this year we can actually make Avs fans correct when they refer to the Avalanche-Wild rivalry.

Until then, the Wild are nothing but a bully and we’re a scrawny 8-year-old kid. It’s time for the Avalanche to step up and make this a true rivalry.

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