The Colorado Avalanche beat another Colorado team in the 2001 Stanley Cup Final to capture the franchise’s second championship.
Yes, that’s right.
There are two Colorado NHL teams. One is the Avalanche. The other was once known as the Colorado Rockies, but then morphed into the New Jersey Devils. While that original Colorado-based NHL franchise has been away from Denver is nearly four decades, the club’s origins lie in the Centennial State.
Once upon a time, the NHL expanded to include two new clubs ahead of the 1974-75 season. One club was the Washington Capitals. The Capitals are still around today in their original form. The other club was the Kansas City Scouts.
Don’t worry if you’ve never heard about the Scouts. The only lasted for about two seasons before moving to Denver. Denver had just completed a brand-spanking new venue called McNichols Arena in 1975. So, Denver was itching to get the arena filled. In addition to the Denver Nuggets, arena ownership wanted an NHL club to fill out the venue.
So, the fight was on to get an expansion team into Colorado. But that would be a tough prospect. The NHL canceled an expansion round in 1977. That left relocation as the quickest way to get an NHL franchise in Colorado.
Two teams were on the rocks at the time: The California Golden Seals and the Scouts. Just as a short recap, the Golden Seals entered the NHL in its first wave of expansion in 1967. The Seals then became the Oakland Seals, Bay Area Seals, the Cleveland Barons, and then merged with the Minnesota North Stars, which ultimately became the Dallas Stars.
That mess left the Scouts as the only other relocation-ready team. That’s when Jack Vickers stepped in, bought the Scouts, and headed to Denver. The new club was renamed the Colorado Rockies.
Unfortunately, the Rockies were awful and struggled to remain in Colorado.
Avalanche defeated old Rockies in 2001 Stanley Cup Final
The Rockies played their inaugural season in 1976 out of McNichols Arena. The club was awful, making the playoffs just once in their six seasons. The club lucked into the postseason despite a 19-40-21 mark during the 1976-77 season. The Rockies were swept in their opening-round series that year.
A struggling team and financial troubles ultimately forced Vickers to sell the team to an ownership group that relocated the team to the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey. That was the birth of the Devils ahead of the 1982-83 season.
The Devils would eventually go on to become a dominant force in the mid-90s to the mid-2000s. Along the way, the Devils made it to the 2001 Stanley Cup Final.
Parallel to that, the Quebec Nordiques moved to Colorado to become the Avalanche. The second NHL franchise in Colorado could not use the Rockies nickname as that name had been scooped up by the MLB team in 1993.
That left the second incarnation of hockey in Colorado as the Avalanche. By 2001, the Avalanche and Devils met in an epic seven-game series. The Avalanche took the Cup in a showdown of the once and current Colorado NHL franchises.
It’s a curious twist of fate. But we can only imagine what would have happened if the Rockies had never folded. The Devils would not exist, and who knows if the Colorado would have ever won a Stanley Cup. The Washington Capitals had to wait until 2018 to get their only championship.
Perhaps Colorado was better off waiting for a second iteration. Otherwise, we might not be having this conversation in the first place.