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Colorado Avalanche Mount Rushmore Monument Nominees

By Nadia Archuleta

DENVER, CO - DECEMBER 7: Members of the Colorado Avalanche 20th Anniversary Team are honored before a game against the Minnesota Wild at Pepsi Center on December 7, 2015 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Justin Edmonds/Getty Images)
DENVER, CO - DECEMBER 7: Members of the Colorado Avalanche 20th Anniversary Team are honored before a game against the Minnesota Wild at Pepsi Center on December 7, 2015 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Justin Edmonds/Getty Images) /
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The Mount Rushmore National Memorial (U.S. National Park Service) in Keystone, South Dakota, United States, is seen on July 8, 2018. Sculptures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln were carved into granite in the Black Hills where the project took place from 1927 to 1941. 90% of the carving involved the use of dynamite. (Photo by Patrick Gorski/NurPhoto via Getty Images) /

The Colorado Avalanche have enough greats in their history to create their own Mount Puckmore. Three are obvious. Who would be the fourth?

The Colorado Avalanche don’t have as long a history as, say, the Boston Bruins. But then, they’ve been around a site longer than the Vegas Golden Knights — and they have more heroes than the Minnesota Wild, obviously.

There are a lot of mountain in Colorado. Let’s say you wanted to hike over to one of those 14ers and transform it with Avalanche greats. You could create a monument for all of Colorado sports.

(Of course, if you wanted to go all Crazy Horse, with a gigantic monument, it would be John Elway of the Denver Broncos. Because football. And broncos are horses. Crazy Horse… oh, you get the point.)

This idea was actually inspired by sister site Eye on Isles, a New York Islanders site. My criteria are going to be a little different. While writer Michael Anderson opened up selection to the front offices as well, I’m not going to. Because no one wants to see a gigantic Pierre LaCroix head.

Anderson’s list was only for alumni, too. Well, I want to throw a certain player into consideration even though he’s still active. I’m not saying let’s get out the chisels. But… maybe the Avs’ Mount Rushmore will eventually have a fifth bust.

The New York Islanders are an expansion team dating back to 1972. That franchise has only ever been in New York. Conversely, as we well know, the Colorado Avalanche moved from Quebec to here. So, while Anderson didn’t have to deal with former greats, I’m going to deal with them just to state the Nordiques and Avalanche are not the same team in my book. So, no disrespect to the Nordiques, but I’m only considering Avalanche contributions.

Now, the Colorado Avalanche have five players who have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, and six players who’ve had their numbers retired by the team. Four of those players overlap. That still makes only three of the busts easy.

We’ll get to the fourth in due time.

Without further adieu, let’s get to the easiest inductee for the mount.

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