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Colorado Avalanche Make Annual Hospital Christmas Visit, 2019

ByNadia Archuleta|
AURORA,CO - December 08: Children's Hospital patient Keavin Ochsner, 11, and his mother Vanessa, look at a Polaroid picture taken of them with Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog and other players during a visit at Children's December 08, 2015. Landeskog and all of his teammates, coaches, the mascot "Bernie and the Ice Girls visited patients for nearly two hours marking the 20th anniversary for the team visit. Players and coaches had pictures taken with patients and signed autographed pictures. Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images
AURORA,CO - December 08: Children's Hospital patient Keavin Ochsner, 11, and his mother Vanessa, look at a Polaroid picture taken of them with Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog and other players during a visit at Children's December 08, 2015. Landeskog and all of his teammates, coaches, the mascot "Bernie and the Ice Girls visited patients for nearly two hours marking the 20th anniversary for the team visit. Players and coaches had pictures taken with patients and signed autographed pictures. Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images

Like they do every year, the Colorado Avalanche made their rounds at Children’s Hospital, spreading hope and cheer along the way.

The Colorado Avalanche made their annual visit to Children’s Hospital earlier in the month. They spread cheer while themselves having a good time.

The Colorado Avalanche made their annual holiday hospital visit on December 2. It’s a little early this year, likely to accommodate the hectic schedule they had coming up. The team left for Toronto the following day.

In any case, it’s a time of year the players look forward to every year. They spend the afternoon spreading holiday cheer to kids and their families who are stuck dealing with illnesses during the holiday season.

Here we see some of the players getting ready for their visit by putting on the traditional Santa hats in non-traditional colors — burgundy and blue:

Personally, I think burgundy and blue are mighty fine colors for Christmas hats.

The Colorado Avalanche social media team had a little fun at Mikko Rantanen’s expense. He’s known for having a big head. So, they made a little fun of him trying to put his hat on:

It looks like Rantanen was in on the joke. Check out the side-eye from J.T. Compher. Then as he looks in amazement at Rantanen’s head… well, our forward can give some black looks, but he’s got a couple extra expressions, too.

Sometimes the players visit kids who are immune-compromised. So, they have to put on protective gear over their clothing:

Here they are visiting the child and his mother:

The little tyke, Xander, seems especially excited to see our captain, Gabriel Landeskog. He gives Landeskog the fist bump and looks delighted to receive a signed card:

Side, note: Vladislav Kamenev is back to having the deer in the headlight look. I like to think the players drag him around to everything, that he has no idea what’s going on, but he’s amiably going along with everything.

Another group of Ava players visited a little girl. Not only did they take the pictures and give her autographs, they gifted her with an Avs Bernie doll. What’s more, they brought something that’s almost better than the Avs captain — a puppy!

Actually, the pooch is the same one who visited the kids with the players last year.

The wily little girl somehow got J.T. Compher to put on… handcuffs? Funnily enough, he seemed to have trouble getting the toy cuffs off.

The Avs Twitter just lamented that it wasn’t Nikita Zadorov in cuffs. (They have a running joke with him because apparently he’s such a menace.)

Another group of players included Erik Johnson. And he was apparently in a good mood because he yukked it up with the social media crew. First, he refused to put the microphone on correctly:


That does look like a haphazard business.

Next, he made some strange faces for the camera:


By the way, it appears more and more of our players are either developing eyesight problems or a taste for eyeglasses as fashion. Because before this season I’ve never seen Johnson in glasses. Or Tyson Jost. Or Gabriel Landeskog…

Anyway, as I wrote in a previous post, Andre Burakovsky is at home here in Colorado. He was a little shy with the social media team at first. However, he’s now hamming it up pretty regularly for the crew:


The Avs Ice Patrol also got in on the visit. They went around with a sleigh filled with the Bernie dolls.


No telling if any of them ended up in handcuffs à la JT Compher.

Anyway, the players almost seem to enjoy themselves more than the patients they’re visiting.

Almost. Because it’s clear they really are doing a good job of spreading cheer to kids and families who are otherwise facing a rough patch in their lives.

These visits have been going on pretty much since the beginning of the Colorado Avalanche’s time here in Colorado. I was once told the stars in the Golden Era started the trips informally. Now, they’re a yearly tradition.

It must be tough to be in the hospital at any time, but especially during the holidays. The Colorado Avalanche players did their best to spread hope and cheer during their visit.

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