TEAMS DENVER LOVES TO HATE
Patrick Roy and the unbeaten Avalanche meet one of them Thursday, the Detroit Red Wings.
“Itwas best ofmy career, no doubt about it. Wewere into it. There are a lot of good memories. Every time we played them, we knewthat the winner had a good chance to go far in the playoffs, if not win the Stanley Cup.” Patrick Roy, on the Avalanche-Red Wings rivalry
If anyone knew what a good rivalry was by the time he came to Denver in December 1995, itwas Patrick Roy. As a goalie with the Montreal Canadiens, he already had been a part of three of the best rivalries in hockey history. Montreal vs. Boston, Montreal vs. Toronto, Montreal vs. Quebec — heated, passionate, storied rivalries, all.
But none of them came close to the rivalry thatwould become Avalanche vs. RedWings.
“Itwas best ofmy career, nodoubt about it,” said Roy, whose Avs can improve to 7-0 with a victory Thursday night in Detroit’s one and only regular-season visit to the Pepsi Center. “Wewere into it. There are a lot of goodmemories. Every time we played them, we knew that the winner had a good chance to go far in the playoffs, if not win the Stanley Cup.”
The past fewyears havemostly been rivalry-free for theAvs as age, attrition and a rot- ten record turned them into patsies against most opponents. Colorado and Detroit last met in the playoffs in 2008, and that series finished ignominiously for the Avs, a sweep in the second round.
Denver is a great sports town, but for whatever reason, none of the pro teams currently have great rivalries. Broncos-Oakland Raiders? It’s been awhile since both teams were good in the same year. Rockies and Diamondbacks? Maybe in 2007, when they met in the National League Championship Series. Nuggets and … anybody? Not really. What makes a good, lasting rivalry? Geography helps, and Denver’s isolation hurts compared with other cities. The Canadiens and old Quebec Nordiques were about a 150-mile drive apart on the Trans-Canada Highway. History helps rivalries too, but the first major Denver pro sports team, the Broncos of the old American Football
League, were born in 1960. The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, by comparison, have been going at it since the early 1900s.
Mostly, though, repeated playoff matchups are what makes a great rivalry, and that is something Denver teams have lacked since theWings andAvs duked it out on an almost annual basis.
“Let’smake the playoffs a couple years in a row and I’m sure we can find someone,” Roy said. “The playoffs are where the rivalries build up, and we faced Detroit a lot in the playoffs back then. Until we establish ourselves as one of the top teams, we need to be patient and then the rivalries will come back.”
The Wings and Avs met five times in the postseason from 1996-2002, with theAvswinning three (1996, 1999 and 2000) and losing twice (1997 and 2002). Some of the most intense hockey in Avs history was played between two teams full of future Hall of Famers. The regular-season battles weren’t bad either.
“The first thing you always looked for when the schedules came out was when the Detroit games were,” Avalanche executive vice president of hockey operations Joe Sakic said. “There were other good teams, like Dallas, and we played them in the playoffs a few times, but I think we always measured ourselves against Detroit, and I’m sure they thought the same thing with us.”
Many of the best verbal exchanges between the teams are unprintable in a newspaper. There were countless psychological games between the teams too, including the time former Wings coach Scotty Bowmanordered the visiting locker room at Joe Louis Arena painted right before the 1996WesternConference finals. Avs players had to breathe noxious fumes. That didn’t stop them from sweeping the first two games of the series in Detroit. Then there was the time Bowman ordered a makeshift additional bench for the team’s visits to McNichols Sports Arena, because he thought the visiting bench wasn’t regulation length — and it wasn’t.
The fights between Roy and Detroit goalies MikeVernon and Chris Osgood at center ice at The Joe are two of the best-remembered moments of the rivalry. WhenRoy is handed pictures to sign by fans, often they are of one of the two fights.
“We all did what we thought we had to do in those games, to be on the winning side,” Roy said. “But I think we’re living a lot in the past right now, and I try to move on, to be honest, and look at what’s next for us.”
With theAvs in a newdivision, a newrivalmost likelywill come fromone of the teams inside that division, especially since the first two rounds of the playoffs will feature series between the top four teams in the division (No. 1 seed plays No. 4 andNo. 2 vs. No. 3, then the winners of those series play for the division championship, followed by the conference finals).
“I think that’s what the league wanted when they did it that way, formore rivalries to happen that last a while,” Avs goalie J.S. Giguere said.
It will be a tough chore for any of the rivalries to match AvsWings, circa 1996-2002.
“I watched most of those games on TV,” said Matt Duchene, 22. “Itwas just great hockey, the best. It might not be like it oncewas, butwe’ve played them pretty tough the last few years. I think they always bring out the best in us. They’re still a great team, and it’s going to be a good game (Thursday) night I’m sure, fun for the fans.”