Colorado Avalanche: Ideas for an Ideal Hispanic Heritage Night

Videos and Fan Interactions for an Hispanic Heritage Night

Going back to the Colorado Avalanche’s social media team, we love them. They’re so creative, and I know they would come up with some good ideas for videos of the players for Hispanic Heritage Night.

One option could be the players trying fake Mexican food — caravan to Caso Bonita, folks — and authentic Mexican food the likes of which you can only find on South Federal.

Another option could have them playing Loteria hockey-style. Loteria is essentially Mexican bingo, but the squares have pictures and Spanish words. For this video, you could make up special cards with hockey terms in Spanish.

Why not some fan interactions at the game itself? The entertainment crew always pulls people aside to play games for prizes during TV time outs. How about games related to their guessing hockey terms in Spanish? They could also try to identify the different flags from Spanish-speaking countries.

The team also features a Hero of the Game, usually a veteran. Well, they could invite someone from the local Latino community, perhaps a veteran or perhaps a teacher, firefighter, or other neighborhood hero. The announcement of their accomplishments would be in Spanish.

I asked my resident Spanish-speaking contributor, Adrienne Tyler, if she’d like to write this post. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time. However, she did add the lament:

"“My main issue with these heritage nights is that they only happen once every season, where there should be an actual continuous effort, all season long.”"

I agree completely. However, the Colorado Avalanche has never done a full-on heritage night — the closest they’ve come is allowing a Swedish Heritage Night after-party in conjunction with captain Gabriel Landeskog‘s Friends initiative. So, starting with a heritage night would be a good stepping stone to the full inclusion Adrienne, and I, want.

Which players would be willing to take part? Well, like I noted in that previous post, we have a player of Mexican-American heritage, Matthew Nieto. He’s the shy type, though, and I doubt he’d want to take center stage.

We have two other players of color, Nazem Kadri (Lebanese descent) and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (Caribbean-African descent). Not that they’d have to participate, being people of color, but they’d probably want to because they’re also just those kinds of men.

Our two most gregarious of players, Tyson Jost and our captain, Gabriel Landeskog, would also be up for some fun. Some of the other Europeans might take part, too — you know Nikita Zadorov wouldn’t want to be left out.

The key for the Colorado Avalanche would be to keep it all respectful. The point is outreach to the local and world-wide Latino community. And it can all start with an Hispanic Heritage Night.