subject: The Colorado Avalanche Tickets : The 2010 Offseason Proved Limited Activity On The Avs Part [print this page] The Colorado Avalanche are a professional ice hockey team based in Denver, Colorado, United States. They are members of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Avalanche have won the Stanley Cup twice, in 1996 and 2001.
The franchise was founded in Quebec and were the Quebec Nordiques until moving to Colorado in 1995. The Avalanche have won eight division titles and went to the playoffs in each of their first 10 seasons in Denver, with the streak ending in 2007.
The Avalanche are the only team in NHL history to win the Stanley Cup their first season after a relocation, and only the second team to win a championship their first season after a relocation in any of the four major North American sports leagues, following the Washington Redskins of the NFL.
From their first season in Denver in 1995, until the end of the 1998/99 season, the Avalanche played their home games at McNichols Sports Arena. Since then, they have played at Pepsi Center.The Avalanche have a notable rivalry with the Detroit Red Wings, partly due to having met each other five times in seven years in the Western Conference playoffs between 1996 and 2002.
Colorado finishes their 2009-10 campaign with 95 points on the season, a 26 point improvement from the previous year's effort, and good enough for 8th place in the Western Conference. Paul Stastny finishes as the team's top scorer with a career best 79 points (20g/59a), and Chris Stewart tallies a team high 28 goals. Matt Duchene ended up as the leading scorer in the league's rookie class with the most points (55) and most goals (24).
The postseason ended after 6 games in the first round, falling to the top seeded San Jose Sharks. Despite his NHL playoff record setting 51 save shutout performance (50 saves in regulation time) in game three, Craig Anderson gave up ten goals in the next three games. After losing each of those three, the Avs were eliminated from the playoffs.
The 2010 offseason proved limited activity on the Avs' part. Wasting little time in signing Adam Foote for another year to serve as team captain, as well as one-year deals to back-up goalie Peter Budaj and enforcer David Koci, the organization took its time throughout the remainder of the offseason signing four of their restricted free agents each to two-year deals; Kyle Quincey, Brandon Yip, Chris Stewart and fresh face Peter Mueller, earlier acquired from the Phoenix Coyotes for Wojtek Wolski before the previous season's trade deadline.
Mueller's signing was finalized just inside of two weeks before the start of Avalanche training camp. Daniel Winnik was traded by Phoenix to Colorado for a fourth round pick in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft,he later signed to a two-year contract with the Avalanche.The Avalanche decided not to however offer new contracts to the likes of Darcy Tucker, Brett Clark, Marek Svatos, or Ruslan Salei. With the 17th overall pick in the 2010 NHL Draft, the Avs chose Joey Hishon of the Owen Sound Attack.
The Colorado Avalanche have the NHL record for the longest consecutive attendance sell outs with 487. The streak began on November 9, 1995, on the Avalanche's eighth regular season home game during the 1995/96 season, with an attendance of 16,061 at the McNichols Sports Arena versus the Dallas Stars.
Almost 11 years later, it ended on October 16, 2006, after a reported attendance of 17,681, which is 326 under capacity at Pepsi Center, before a game against the Chicago Blackhawks. The Avalanche recorded their 500th home sellout in their 515th game in Denver on January 20, 2007, against the Detroit Red Wings.
The team colors are burgundy, steel blue, black, silver, and white. For the 2007/08 season, the NHL introduced the new-look Rbk EDGE jerseys. The Avalanche debuted their new version of the Rbk EDGE jerseys on September 12, 2007 at an Avalanche press conference. The design is similar to the previous jerseys, with some added striping.
The Avalanche introduced a third jersey during the 2001/02 season.[88] It is predominantly burgundy. "Colorado" is spelled in a diagonal across the jersey where the logo is on the other jerseys. From the belly down, three large horizontal stripes, the first and the last being black and the middle one being white. In the middle of the arms, there are five stripes, black, white and burgundy from the outside inside in both sides. On the shoulders is the primary "A" logo.
The third jersey was not worn by the Avalanche for the 2007/08 or the 2008/09 seasons after the NHL switched to the Reebok Edge jerseys. In the 2009-10 season, the Avalanche introduced a new third jersey that was worn for the first time during the November 14th, 2009 home game against the Vancouver Canucks.
It is similar to the club's previous third jersey, but is primarily blue instead of burgundy and features burgundy patches on the shoulders with the "A" logo inside. It also does not have horizontal striping on the bottom. On the arms, there are five stripes, burgundy, white and black from the outside inside in both sides. They are closer to the elbows than the stripes on the previous third jerseys.
