Attending the Colorado Avalanche Playoff Run!
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I wrote a big five-page article about being excited to be in the home crowd for Game Two… but in rush to get off work and start my evening, I accidentally closed my document without saving. I spent like 30 minutes trying to access AutoRecovery, TempDir, Word temp files and everything to try and find it, all with no success. The Avs lost the game and played uninspired, but I wanted to help share my experience for anyone that wants to come to their first playoff game or can’t make it to a game for any reason! Ball Arena and the surrounding Denver area are awesome and worth visiting if you haven’t already!
Attending the Game!
I took my stepdad to our first playoff game and was super excited about it, after purchasing season ticket playoff seats from a co-worker who is a season ticket holder and opted into the playoff package. We were sitting three rows back in section 238 of the club level, the same side that the Avalanche attacked twice. The seats were amazing, the atmosphere was electric from about 30 minutes before puck drop until about 5 minutes into the second period, then the fans started to get restless after being shut out.
Crowd Noise
There were about 5 missed tripping calls that had the stadium rowdy towards the referees. It felt like the team really was going through the motions for most of the game though. They were not skating as fast. They weren’t battling as hard in the corners for the 50/50 pucks. The team made some decent hits, but for some reason seemed like they weren’t interested in finishing every check they could which seemed to let the blue go unpunished routinely. The stick handling was really sloppy, where it seemed like every breakaway opportunity ended in either a bad pass or a mishandle give-away.
When the Avalanche finally scored in the third period the place went ballistic. The entire arena was patiently waiting for something to get crazy about and the Blues did a great job of postponing that celebration until two minutes into the third period. But once the Avs scored, it was only a 2-1 lead, and the game was in striking distance for the good guys! Eight minutes of competitive hockey later, the Blues would score their third goal to add to their one goal lead with only ten minutes left to play. An empty netter with two minutes left in the game would put things out of reach and end the game in disappointment.
The crowd was so ready to be an aggressive and rowdy home ice advantage but early in the game if felt obvious the boys were not playing their best game of Hockey that night. They were outshot and absolutely dominated in the playoff circle, so we left the game, as the final horn sounded, feeling like the Loss was our fault, this being our first ever game! I’m glad they went into St. Louis and dominated to take that series lead back on the road!
Visiting Ball Arena and Denver
If you’re a visiting fan, most people park at either the stadium or the Denver Theme Park Elitches across the train tracks and walk over the foot bridge to the arena. Parking isn’t crazy expensive; I think we paid $20 for parking at Elitches. We got to Ball Arena three hours early and met up with some family members, that were also attending the game, at the Denver famous bar Brooklyns, which is a perfectly placed restaurant located 100-yards from the arena. It is always flooded with Avs/Nuggets fans before games and is a great place to start your evening!
Ball Arena is electric, when the fans are screaming and the game is exciting, that place feels like a world class venue. Noisy, raucous, it shakes and vibrates with energy. I’ve attended a handful of Nuggets playoff games and each one is louder and more insane than the last. However, when the game is long and slow, there aren’t any scores or really good opportunities in the first two periods, the energy was slowly drained and I think that is every road teams’ goal in the playoffs, just take the crowd out of the equation.
Pre Game and Club Level
Before the game the Avalanche had a few festivities outside the arena, there was a big inflatable hocky goal with a goalie in net. My family all filled out a waiver and got five shots to score on the goalie. After filling out the waiver we got a nice white #29 MacKinnon Avalanche playoff shirt, with an Alternate Captain patch on the shoulder! Once we entered the venue, we were still one hour before puck drop and decided to go to the team store to see what we could get, which had 100+ people already in line to get their souvenirs from Ball Arena. My stepdad and I decided to go find our seats and get a drink, that was when we realized our seats were club level and we were incredibly spoiled!
The club level has better food, shorter lines, a private store that didn’t have more than five people in it when we were shopping, and a gorgeous view of Denver where a bar lounge went all the way to the glass and gave a great view of the city and the skyline. After the second period I was getting hungry, so we walked around to find some food, I got myself a Gyro that was fantastic! Significantly bigger and better than I was expecting from normal stadium food. Our experience at the game was great, getting food, drinks, festivities and screaming for our team. The outcome was disappointing, but they were 5-0 at that point in the playoffs and they were never going to go 16-0 to win the Stanley Cup!
I hope everyone who wants to gets a chance to go see the Avalanche play a home game at Ball Arena! I hope this article helps people see into the stadium and the event, and get a little nibble of the game day experience! I believe the Avalanche win their third Stanley Cup in 2022!
#QuestFor16 #GoAvs #ColoradoAvalanche
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