Colorado Avalanche: Ideas for an Ideal Hispanic Heritage Night
The Colorado Avalanche should host an Hispanic Heritage Night as an outreach to the local Latino community and to grow the game.
The Colorado Avalanche play in Colorado. No, that’s not just a Captain Obvious statement. I bring it up to also point out another fact about Colorado — it has a rich Hispanic heritage. In fact, the name “Colorado” is a Spanish word for red, an homage to our red rocks.
Likewise, as I highlighted in a previous post, Colorado has a large Hispanic population. A full 21.9% of the state’s 5.7 million population is of Hispanic origin.
It seems like the team is missing out on a golden opportunity to grow the game and fill seats with people who aren’t cheering for the opponents by not reaching out to the Latino community. What’s more, the team can build bridges by highlighting Latino culture with an Hispanic Heritage Night.
So, let’s say the team decided to do one. What would the ideal heritage night look like? Well, I put the question out on my social media, and the overwhelming response was for a Day of the Dead themed night.
Day of the Dead Night
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A Day of the Dead night is not a bad idea at all. Everyone loves Day of the Dead imagery. To make this about Hispanic heritage, though, and not just kitsch, we’d have to have some publicity about what the Day of the Dead really is.
The Day of the Dead is a strictly Mexican observance. Mexicans and people of Mexican heritage celebrate the Day of the Dead, Día de Muertos, starting on October 31 and ending on November 2. They create altars to celebrate the lives of their deceased loved ones.
The masks or makeup you probably associate with the Day of the Dead relates to the costumes observers wear. People celebrating in Mexico usually like to get their faces painted like skulls, which also mimic the sugar skulls that are part of the holiday.
So, how would we incorporate this holiday into a hockey heritage night? The first step would be for the Colorado Avalanche’s excellent social media team to make a video of the players donning skull makeup, making sugar skulls or, if they felt truly inspired, making or at least describing what they’d put on an altar in remembrance of a loved one.
The Avalanche’s former AHL team, the San Antonio Rampage, already does an excellent job of observing a Day of the Dead night — in fact, it’s called by its Spanish name, Día de Muertos. The players wear a special Day of the Dead jersey (an NHL team might only be able to wear it for warmups), which is also a giveaway for mini plans and is available for purchase. If you buy a special ticket, you also get a sugar skull bobblehead.
The Ice Patrol would also come out in Day of the Dead makeup and the special jerseys. Also, how much fun would it be to see what getup mascot Bernie would don for the night?
The Rampage always hold the Día de Muertos night as close to the actual observance as possible. The Avs would want to do the same.
Let’s look at an idea that maybe delves a little deeper into the actual Latin community here in Denver.
Spanish-Speaking Night
The Day of the Dead theme would be only relative to the Mexican culture. However, Hispanic culture does include a common thread — language. If you wanted to reach a level of true cultural inclusion, you could implement a Spanish-speaking night.
This idea isn’t foreign. Both the NHL as a whole and the Arizona Coyotes in particular have Twitter feeds in nothing but Spanish.
Well, the Colorado Avalanche could broaden that idea to the whole evening. They could start by inviting a local Spanish-speaking singer to sing the National Anthem in Spanish.
In case you don’t think that’s a thing, it is:
What’s more, I’d like to see the goal and penalty calls done in Spanish. Why not? You know what a goal is. The player’s name will be the same. You’ll just hear the rest of it in Spanish. (It sounds pretty cool.)
Altitude Radio has two frequencies, one AM and one FM. The team could put out a Spanish-speaking broadcast on one of those frequencies.
You could also invite speakers from some of the local Latino organizations, teachers and students from Hispanic-dominant schools, local or even national Hispanic celebrities. Wilmer Valderrama (Venezuelan descent) doesn’t have any ties to Colorado, but he might fancy a night of hockey here anyway for a good cause. He is outspoken about promoting Hispanic heritage.
Let’s look at some of the more interactive ways you could incorporate Hispanic heritage into a celebratory 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.
Related Story. Hockey is for Latino Community, Too. light
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.