The Eurolanche book (1.)
Eurolanche will be gradually publishing the entire book about its history via its website throughout the summer.Foreword: Adrian Dater
There are many great traditions that have developed in the Colorado Avalanche’s 23-year history. From the bellowing voice of public address announcer Alan Roach to the national anthems of singer Jake Schroeder, to two Stanley Cups and a whole bushel full of great star players, the Avs have a unique history that has made the city of Denver proud.
One other tradition sprang up about 10 years ago, though, and it is unique to the Avalanche. It is its fervent band of followers who make an annual trek to the city to wear the Avs’ color and bang the drum, literally and figuratively, for their favorite team.
Every year, there is an “invasion” from the members of a group calling itself Eurolanche. You definitely know when Eurolanche is in town. They bring a soccer-crowd, frenzied fan experience to the Pepsi Center, and on road games of the Avs too, that stands out in a good way.
These aren’t just Avs fans. They are Avs fanatics. I know, having met many of them, including the group’s founder, David Puchovsky. David might be the most dedicated Avs fan I’ve ever met, in fact.
His website, Eurolanche.com, has become a go-to repository for Avalanche news and information. It has become a communal ground for Avs fans from the other side of the Atlantic to share their passion for the team.
The Avalanche organization itself has embraced the Eurolanche community. Many Avs players have noticed, giving them their time for interviews and photo opportunities. Even in the team’s worst times, there has been one thing Avs players and management could count on: Unwavering support from the people of Eurolanche.
I think you will find the following book interesting. The story itself of how David conceived the community is unique and fun to read, and there are many good tales of their interactions with fellow Avs fans from all over the world.
May the Eurolanche community live on forever as a valued part of the Avs’ identity.
Adrian Dater Oct. 12, 2017
In case you’re interested in the unabridged, colored PDF version of the book, contact us at eurolanche@eurolanche.com. The physical copies are all sold out.
Foreword: Petr Novotny
To live your dream
When I first met the author of this book, he was 16 and arrived to Olomouc for a dinner with the members of the Jagr Team. He won it in a ProHockey magazine contest and arrived with his mother and grandfather to fulfill a dream – to meet players from the NHL.
Back then, he told me that his favorite team were the Colorado Avalanche and his dream was to go to a real NHL game in Denver. We talked for quite some time. He then had dinner with the players and played bowling with them afterwards.
Since then, he began to write letters on a regular basis, in which he commented on the current hockey events happening overseas and also asked a lot of questions. How to approach teams, how to get in touch with players... Additionally, he used to inform me about his ideas how to get as close to the NHL as possible. I tried to support him, but it all seemed more like the daydreams of an overly enthusiastic fan, who will head into an entirely different direction in the near future.
How wrong I have been! David Puchovsky was so determined to achieve his dreams as only a handful of other young men could possibly be. He had the idea of creating a European fan club for Colorado Avalanche fans. And just like that, he really did it.
If something was unclear to him, he wrote a letter and asked about it. I think that I once even replied something along the lines of not being able to answer every question he had, because if I was to communicate with every other reader like I did with him, I wouldn’t be doing anything else and I still wouldn’t be able to keep up. But David didn’t give up. If I couldn’t help him, then he wrote my colleagues from the Swedish edition of the magazine or to someone else entirely. He simply had a dream he didn’t want to wait for. Instead, he gradually paved his way towards it. And if one editor-in-chief didn’t reply to him, it was only a small hurdle he simply overcame.
Most importantly – David wasn’t a regular reader, who thinks about the NHL in one second and about something completely different the next one.
When he wrote me about his first trip to Denver, the sentences appearing on my monitor almost screamed how indescribably happy he was that it all worked out. He returned to Denver with other members of the ever-growing Eurolanche Fan Club a number of times since then.
Various North American media have since cited his website as the source of breaking news and reports. The Colorado Avalanche are quite familiar with his him and his work, his face has appeared on the jumbotron directly over the ice in the arena.The legendary Jeremy Roenick conducted a nationally broadcasted interview with him for NBC Sports...
I gladly made an exception and expanded the fan mail section in our magazine from one to two fan mails in order to publish David’s report from his trip in the United States. It was really worth it. Like always, when you see someone’s hard work and dedication pay off by them achieving their dreams.
And this is what this book is all about – about fulfilled dreams.
Petr Novotny,
Editor-in-chief of the ProHockey magazine
One for all, all for Eurolanche
Ten years. Ten years of fulfilled dreams. Ten years of unforgettable experiences. Ten years of beautiful memories. Not even in my wildest dreams did I expect Eurolanche to exist as long as to celebrate its 10th anniversary. And even if I did, I surely didn’t expect that we would return to Denver nine times in total during that span; that NHL legend Jeremy Roenick would do a live interview with me for NBC Sports; or that Joe Sakic would respond to my request ‘Could you, please, sign a poster and dedicate it to me, David?’ with ‘I know who you are’.
The media often use the term dream factory and it’s safe to say that Eurolanche indeed became one. During its 10 years of existence, we organized nine Eurolanche Invasions with the participation of 37 unique participants (54 in total) from 8 European countries, who attended 56 Colorado Avalanche games, with four of them being away games. Furthermore, we held 9 member meetings, 9 meetings with both former and current Avalanche players, and interviewed more than 60 players and people connected with the organization from the Mile High City. We also appeared in all global, North American and European hockey media we possibly could. Everyone, who was part of this hard, 10-year-long work, either regularly, partially, or even minimally, can be proud of themselves. Thanks to our fantastic work as a team, we made Eurolanche into a brand, which is unrivaled on the entire NHL market.
The book 10 years of the Eurolanche Fan Club tells the complete and detailed story of the Eurolanche Fan Club. With these 200 pages, I wanted to elucidate the first weeks and months of the Fan Club’s existence, its turning points, tough times and problems, as well as its greatest achievements not only to our members, but to both hockey fans and sports fans in general as well.This book is a previously unpublished account of Eurolanche’s everyday functioning and a look behind its scenes, which often resembled a chaotic frontline, which we had to navigate through in order to achieve the state we’re in after ten years.
One could compare the Eurolanche Fan Club to a small company, with its story being a good example of achieving the so-called American dream. It’s a story of dedicated hockey fans, who made it from their small bedrooms in Europe full of posters, PlayStations, ProHockey magazines and hockey cards all the way to the Pepsi Center to fulfill their dream – to see the Colorado Avalanche play in person.
Since I’ve been present at 99-percent of the events organized by the Fan Club, as well as organizing most of them, I wrote this book as a first-person narrative. I describe all events as I remember them after all these years, including all the positive, as well as negative emotions, which helped shape the future of the Fan Club and all its projects.
Based on the game we love, I divided the book into five parts – I. Period (beginning at the moment I became a fan of the Avalanche all the way to Eurolanche’s first trip to Denver), II. Period (detailing the period between the first and the ninth Invasion), III. Period (Member stories), Overtimeand Shootout. Additional bonus material is part of special paragraphs titledCommercial Break, which are scattered throughout all parts of the book. At the end of the I. Period, as well as at the ends of each subchapters of the II. Period, are short summaries titled The season of the Colorado Avalanche, which detail how the Avalanche fared during the 10-year existence of Eurolanche.
At first, I hesitated how much to write in the I. Period in order to prevent the book becoming an autobiography instead of a story about Eurolanche. I tried my best to remain brief, only highlighting the moments I considered to be the most interesting. I wanted to avoid overly describing the beginnings of my Avalanche fandom, opting to describe the life of an NHL fan at the turn of the millennium to readers from all over the world instead. I’m certain that most of you had a similar experience as I, which is why the first part of the book isn’t my, but our story – a story of European fans of the world’s best hockey league.
The book as whole is a big mosaic of stories of members of the Eurolanche Fan Club, who had the opportunity to fulfill their dreams throughout the past 10 years. I dedicate it to everyone, who has followed, is following, or will follow our motto from 2007 – One for all, all for the Avs as well as its alternative, after which I’ve named this prologue.
I hope that this story, our story, will continue for at least another decade.
Bratislava,
August 9, 2017
David Puchovsky
Eurolanche Founder and President
Eurolanche.com, Worldwide, eurolanche@eurolanche.com
15/07/2018 - 21:51
