Eurolanche

Eurolanche statement: Don't block my Avs

The biggest Colorado Avalanche fan club in the world, founded in 2007, has chosen to react to the current situation regarding the broadcasting of Avalanche games for fans in Colorado and nearby US states.

No one can empathize with North American fans as much as Eurolanche members. It wasn’t all too long ago that European Avalanche fans lacked the opportunity to watch any games of their beloved club. Not even on the internet, or on TV. A lot of our members began following the Colorado Avalanche 20 or, in some cases, ever longer ago by looking up results of their games or any related news via teletext. With time, evening news broadcasts began to include brief game highlights and pre-paid private TV channels began broadcasting entire games either live or as full-game replays. Either way, this only amounted to about 5 or 10 broadcasted Avalanche games per year. Many years later, European fans finally got the opportunity to sign up for ESPN’s on-demand ESPN Player streaming service. For the past few years, the NHL began to stream games online via NHL.TV thanks to which we had the chance to watch all games on-demand, both live and as replays.

Back when we were “rookie” fans, it was tough not having any real opportunities to watch Avalanche games. When the games finally made it to our TV screens, we were ecstatic, some were literally jumping up and down, others even cried tears of joy.

We can’t begin to imagine losing NHL.TV or other legal means of game broadcasts on TV or via internet. It would feel like going back in time, all the way to a time when we had to rely on flashy letters on a black background to get any kind of news about our favorite team. It would be a blow to all of us.

We know that the situation must be difficult for North American fans. Right before the start of a season, in which the Avs could realistically contend for the Stanley Cup, they can’t be sure that they’ll be able to watch a single Colorado Avalanche.

Eurolanche has been monitoring the broadcasting dispute since the very beginning. We chose to make a statement now, after Colorado’s first preseason game, as the threat of missing Avs games became real and no real progress has been made in regards to the entire unfortunate situation.

We stand behind all North American Colorado Avalanche fans, many of whom became our dear friends and helped us out time and time again. We’re one family and we’re here for one team. And Eurolanche is here for you.

We support Altitude TV, their effort, prolonged willingness to negotiate and demanded terms, which we consider truthful and fair.

We ask Comcast, DIRECTV and DISH Network to finally end this nonsensical dispute, not to exaggerate their requests with the aim of megalomaniac financial gain at all costs and to misuse their market strength.

Give Colorado Avalanche hockey back to those it belongs to! Give it back to our friends overseas! Don’t bring us Europeans back where we were 20 years ago.