Colorado Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings Octopus

In the hearts of Colorado Avalanche fans — and announcers — the one-time bitter rivalry with the Detroit Red Wings lives on.

The Colorado Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings don’t like each other.

Say what you want about the rivalry being dead. The teams are no longer in the same conference, so they only see each other twice a year. They can’t meet in the playoffs except by some miracle in the actual Stanley Cup Finals. Right now the two teams are fighting for last place, not first.

Say what you want, Detroit Red Wings red makes Avs Nation see furious red.

And that was apparent in last night’s game at the Pepsi Center. As has become usual, there were almost as many opponent fans as Avalanche fans at the Colorado game. (Our state is just so beautiful everyone keeps moving here.) Yet as the third period played on in a 3-1 game, the roar of “Red Wings suck” swelled from the crowd.

We get a lot of practice, you see. At every game against any opponent the chorus of “Let’s go Avalanche” is often followed by a response, “Red Wings suck!” The two cheers are intertwined in Avalanche fans’ minds, even ones who weren’t around back in the rivalry days.

So, the Pepsi Center swelled with the roar of “Red Wings suck” in a game said Wings looked like they were going to lose. And then it happened.

A Red Wings fan threw an octopus onto the ice:

This wasn’t the first time a Detroit fan has thrown an octopus on the ice in front of the Avalanche. In fact, one of the best times was during the 2008 Western Conference Semifinals between the two teams:

Sometimes you’ve just got to miss Cody McLeod.

The octopus is so much a symbol of the Detroit Red Wings that their mascot is Al the Octopus. Yet it’s a tradition that dates back to a bygone era, to the 1950s. Back then a team had to win two best-of-seven series to capture the Stanley Cup. That meant eight wins — and an octopus has eight arms.

Therefore, Wings fans started throwing octopuses onto the ice during home playoff games.

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That’s part of what makes last night’s octopus so ridiculous. As much as out-of-staters try to make Colorado theirs, it’s still Colorado. Pepsi Center is the home arena for the Colorado Avalanche, not the Detroit Red Wings. (Or Chicago Blackhawks. Or Minnesota Wild. Or Buffalo Sabres… really, it’s not our fault your city or state sucks.)

Plus, not only was this not a playoff game, neither team is making the playoffs this year.

Yet throwing an octopus onto the ice at the Pepsi Center — besides meaning a Detroit fan was especially stinky after hiding that thing under his clothes through two-and-half periods — reminds us that the Avalanche-Red Wings rivalry will never be truly dead.

Indeed, the action sent Colorado broadcaster Mike Haynes into a conniption. As the Avalanche ice crew cleared the octopus from the ice, Haynes went off about how tiny the octopus was, how foolish Detroit fans were for throwing it pathetically onto the ice and he hoped they’d all stream out of Pepsi Center, “get into their little cars and go home.”

It’s obvious that Haynes has been calling Avs games since Day 1, and he hates the Detroit Red Wings with an illogical passion same as any Colorado Avalanche fan. We don’t care if the rivalry is supposedly dead — we hate Red Wings fans and their little octopuses and their little cars and their garishly red-clad team.

Especially their octopus. Seriously, what is a Red Wings fan doing with an octopus in the middle of Denver except trying to needle Colorado Avalanche fans?

Next: Best & Worst Moments at the Joe

Also, that’s just gross.