Road Trip! - Mile High City Part II

Aaaaaaaaand we're back. If you guessed that idling is allowed "always", you're illiterate. Have fun with the pretty pictures.

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The next day I bought a ticket to the Hurricanes-Avalanche game that night. I walked up about 4 hours before the game, bought one of the cheapest seats available, and got in just fine.

Nice digs, from the outside.

I'm not really a big fan of rocking my jersey at another team's stadium if my team isn't playing. If it was San Jose-Colorado that night, I'd be head-to-toe in teal, but not just for 2 random teams. Still, I sure as shit wasn't going to wear any red at this game and felt it necessary to at least keep it a little bit real:

As you can tell the Pepsi Center is really gorgeous from the outside, but HP Pavilion still has it absolutely worked on the inside. Sometimes I forget we have the nicest scoreboard in the league.

Last seen at your JV basketball game.

To be serious for a moment, visiting this Avalanche game raised some concerns for me. Take a look at these:

Notice anything? Like the huge swaths of empty seats both in the lower bowl (1st pic) and upper bowl (2nd)? The Avalanche were 7-1-2 at this point, playing at home on a Friday night, and they sold just 76% of the seats. I paid $27 for a cheap seat and plopped down in the first one I could find with plenty of leg and arm room. Can you imagine doing that at HP Pavilion on a Friday night?

Should I be worried about this? One of the league's most successful franchises starts with one of the hottest starts in team history and can barely muster a decent crowd? At least they're not Phoenix... holy shit.

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The game itself, in case you were wondering, was fantastic. Carolina jumped out to a 2 goal lead, but Colorado scored in 2 bunches of 2, held off a penalty shot from Ray Whitney, and ended up winning a 5-4 thriller. Darcy Tucker got a nasty concussion that he's apparently still recovering from.

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2 more notes from the Colorado Avalanche in-game experience:

1. Apparently the good people of Colorado have some kind of hard on for Chipotle (and, I would hope, ChipotlAway). They fly a giant burrito around during periods:


In fact, the citizenry of Denver is so mad with burrito fever they literally parachute in Chipotle during the game (see the orange parachutes?):

2. PEE-WEE HOCKEY!!!


Pee-Wee hockey during the 1st intermission, Pee-Wee shootout during the 2nd! That shit is the best. My personal favorite was Colorado's Announcer Guy interviewing one of the tykes after the pee-wee game:

GUY: Hey there Johnny did you have fun out there?

KID: YEAH.

GUY: So Johnny, who's your favorite player on the Avalanche?

KID: WELL IT WAS JOE SAKIC BUT NOW HE'S RETIRED.

GUY: Ah ha ha ha! So who's your favorite player now?

KID: UHH I DON'T KNOW ANY.

GUY: How about Matt Duchene?

KID: SURE.

GUY: How about me, Johnny, do you know who I am?

KID: NO.

Don't worry, Guy, I couldn't even be bothered to look up your name. I'm sure your anonymity is safe.

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All in all, good times. Thanks for all the beer, Denver.