Eurolanche

Las Vegas a fulfilled dreams (2015/16)

Each Eurolanche Invasion is like a dream come true for its participants. Seeing the Colorado Avalanche play in person has been a dream of theirs for many years. Sadly, a lot of them will never get to fulfill their dream. Others, though, choose to be happy and make their dream a reality, even using the opportunity to return to Denver multiple times. This was one the things the Eurolanche Invasion VIII was about. If there’s a trip Fan Club members, who have returned to the US more than once, will never forget, it will surely be the eighth Invasion.

Its unique story began in January 24, 2015, when the NHL announced two outdoor games as part of the so-called Stadium Series between the Colorado Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings at the Coors Field baseball stadium in Denver. The event was supposed to be preceded by an exhibition game of team legends, the Alumni Game. Both games were scheduled to take place at the end February 2016, almost a year after the initial announcement. Furthermore, the Eurolanche Invasion VII ended just two weeks ago. We didn’t mind. In the moment the league confirmed the event, it was clear that we had to return to Colorado next year.

Invasion VIII broke every possible record even before it began. Its organization began on the very same day in January 2015. In matter of weeks, a group consisting of 12 (!) Eurolanche members knew that they wouldn’t miss seeing the biggest legends of both clubs. Who could resist meeting Peter Forsberg, Valeri Kamensky or Ray Bourque, with everyone being God knows where on the planet and only meeting very rarely. Not to say that they would meet directly in Denver. There was no better opportunity. Actually, it was the first and probably the last chance to see the Stanley Cup-winning roster from both 1996 and 2001 together in one place. The dedication and determination of the registered participants was proved when they began to send me money for tickets to these two games back in spring 2015. Right from the beginning, it became clear that this would be no regular game we could buy tickets for several hours before it began.

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.

 

Before we could officially confirm the organization of Invasion VIII, we had to make sure that we’d get to both games. At the time, we had no idea when the public ticket presale would begin. Later, it was announced that presale would begin in August and would have several phases. First the sponsors, then the owners of certain types of season tickets and regular fans having their turn last. This meant that presale for regular fans would begin by the end of September or in early October. The NHL initially said that they couldn’t guarantee tickets to fans, who didn’t buy at least part- season ticket. We began to panic. We couldn’t wait for our turn somewhere in fall. The following months were full of uncertainty and other worries stemming from more expensive plane tickets and accommodation. I had to come up with a solution, which seemed nowhere to be found. I approached several contacts, including the team itself, but the answer was always the same – it’s an NHL event and we can’t do anything about it. The situation seemed hopeless. Even if we really believed we would still eventually get our hands on tickets, we expected that the seats would be the worst possible. We’ve already done the first step. I already had the estimated sum for tickets from each of the participants. Now to find a way...

August came and we didn’t make any progress at all. It was unbearably hot outside. I still remember it, because it was extremely, extremely hot. It was already winter in our heads. We were constantly thinking about hockey and the games we simply couldn’t miss. The presale for sponsors began on time. Based on the recommendation of an American fan, I contacted a person who had access to tickets. He already helped several people I knew so I decided to use his services,even if for a price.The money in question wasn’t only mine, but that of 11 other people as well. If he turned out to be a fraud, it would mean the end of the Eurolanche Invasion VIII and Eurolanche itself. Luckily, he wasn’t. In a matter of minutes, I received an e-mail confirmation from the official ticket retailer. Even the delivery was special. No printing out tickets at home. Each ticket was printed on hardened paper in luxurious style.That’s why the NHL began to send them to everyone who ordered them. I relied on Nick, who received the tickets at his home in Denver in early 2016. Up until then, we were still worried if someone didn’t just steal our money. We paid for our plane tickets and accommodation back in September.

We held a meeting before flying over to the US. I only knew two from the nine other participants of the eighth Invasion personally. From our previous experience, I thought it was important that we’d meet before embarking on our journey in order to talk about everything connected with the Invasion and to arrange anything that still needed to be. We chose Prague as the location of the meeting, because everyone had to travel about the same distance and amount of time there. Except Robert from Germany, who had to travel 11 hours by bus. A truly exceptional performance considering standard flights to Denver take ten hours at most.

Nine of us met in the Czech capital. Boris, also a German, had to cancel due to health problems. Alex would have to travel way too long from Switzerland. Martin from Bratislava was on a work trip. I later told the absentees everything they needed to know via Skype. I had a lot of fun in Prague. Following a two-hour-long discussion about Invasion VIII and the answering of various question, we could head out to evening Prague. Back at the hotel, we played NHL on PlayStation, with the image being projected on the wall thanks to a data projector. Later, we watched an Avalanche game, which ended in a loss – almost a tradition during similar member meetings. We walked through Prague again on Saturday and everyone went their separate ways on Sunday. I remember travelling to and from the meeting really well. I drove to Prague through Vienna, where I picked up Norbert. It took almost an eternity, about six or seven hours instead of three and a half I would’ve needed if I drove directly from Bratislava. I’ve had enough. The way back lead directly to Bratislava. The forests surrounding the Czech highway were covered by snow, just like in a fairytale. Christmas was knocking on the door. My own winter fairytale was just beginning to write its first pages. Only three months until I get to see my biggest childhood idols.

I probably don’t need to stress how annoying waiting for the day of departure was. I’ve learned to distance myself from being impatient during all the Invasions I participated in, but Invasion VIII was special. Both Colorado and Detroit announced their alumni rosters name by name. On the other hand, I also looked forward to the „regular“ game, where I wanted to see our heated rival on his knees. While I waited, I filled my time with the preparations of our new sister website StadiumSeries.Eurolanche.com, which we wanted to launch in November. Such an important event had to have its own website. One by one, we uploaded all articles about the special weekend. Included on the website were photos from my previous visit of the event’s venue – a tour of Coors Field.The hardest part was to put together the entire history of the rivalry between both teams. The main source of information was Adrian Dater’s book titled Blood Feud. I also emphasized the history of outdoor games in the world. Last but not least, there was a special section for both games, which included detailed reports and stats after the games were played. As if it wasn’t enough, we prepared a window with our own live broadcast from Invasion VIII. It wasn’t a regular embed Twitter window, but our own system. The eighth Invasion was thus as unique as the entire event – it provided coverage in a wide variety of forms.

The wait was finally over on the morning of February 24, 2016. Eleven of us met at the Vienna airport, as Alex traveled from Switzerland on his own. The flight from Vienna to Denver was problem-free. Comfort, the speed and a minimum of time we had to wait.That’s how it’s supposed to be. No rushing until the point of total exhaustion. Following our arrival, we immediately made our way to the car rental service. We didn’t rent two or three cars like in the past. We straight away rented a 12-seat minivan. Since we wouldn’t all fit into it with our luggage, we had to call Nick for help.

In the afternoon of the first day, we made our way to downtown Denver to one of the most luxurious hotels. It was there that both Alumni teams waiting to play their game the following day were accommodated. The only exceptions were probably Milan Hejduk, Joe Sakic, Patrick Roy, Adam Deadmarsh and Craig Billington, who had their private accommodations since all of them worked for the Avalanche. We found ourselves in a street crowded with other fans not far from the main entrance of the hotel. We couldn’t move even an inch. If we crossed the line surrounding the property of the hotel even by accident, the security staff would immediately warn us. My argument that I wanted to get away from the sun at least for a little bit wasn’t good enough. It was beautiful in Denver. Almost too beautiful. It felt like summer, not February.

After three hours, we had the following record – we met Hejduk, who dropped by to say hello to his old teammates, Shjon Podein, Mike Ricci and Adam Foote. Each one of us wanted to get a picture and enough autographs. Some didn’t resist the urge to meet the former Detroit greats, which went against my beliefs. A little disappointed, we hoped that the next day would be more successful. Reality was against it. „Only“ Mike Keane, Curtis Leschyshyn and Sandis Ozolinsh came. The others were either gone, or quickly disappeared into one of the waiting cars. We had some hope for the moment the bus taking the players to the venue would arrive at the hotel. Sadly, most of them were in a hurry even then. This was the moment a saw Ray Bourque for the first, as well the last time. I went around half of the hotel area to get closer to the bus. I was waving my memorable poster from ProHockey, in which he lifts the Stanley Cup over his head. I shouted, I begged. Nothing. He said something along the lines of later, which left me even more disappointed than the previous day. Well, what can you do? We made our way to the stadium, where thousands of fans began to gather in anticipation of the Alumni game.

During our drive near Coors Field, it became apparent that Denver was the venue of an event of epic proportions. Closed streets, thousands of fans, loud music, a lot of cars. We bought a ticket to the parking lot.

The crowd in the almost-sold-out stadium went crazy. They booed the Red Wings players, but it was all in good humor. The visiting Alumni laughed and some even made gestures to provoke the crowd a little. The noise of the crowd was interrupted by a tribute video of the rivalry, which ended with the sentence „Thanks for the memories“. Everyone in the stadium had goosebumps.

Several Avalanche players surprised us during the game and we caught ourselves saying that they could easily return to the NHL at any time. Roy was stopping pucks like back in the old days, Hejduk and Forsberg were constant threats, not to mention Sakic. Colorado deservingly won 5-2. The goals were scored by Kamensky (who coincidentally scored Colorado’s first ever goal in 1995 against Detroit), Sakic, Hejduk, Bourque, Yelle for the home team and by Yzerman and Shanahan for the visitors.

The following day, we went to the hotel of the alumni for the third and final time. We didn’t think they’d all just board their planes and fly home like NHL teams do when playing on the road. They surely had a party and didn’t want to leave so early. We were once again starting to lose patience, which is why the number of fans standing by the hotel, as well as Invasion VIII participants, got smaller and smaller. The majority of our group went shopping in downtown Denver. I wasn’t surprised. Who would want to spend his first three days in Denver standing at a hotel without any guaranteed result? Anyway, those who stayed didn’t regret it. One by one, Kamensky, Mike Kean, Stephane Yelle, Dan Hinote, Eric Messier and, most importantly, Peter Forsberg arrived. I had a gigantic poster with me, which he signed and took a photo with us. When we saw him, he hesitated for a bit, but the presence of the European Fan Club convinced him.

Shortly thereafter, we regrouped (those who missed Forsberg were full of regret) and made our way back to Coors Field. There, we found out that Claude Lemieux will be at a designated stand in a few minutes to give autographs. We joined the queue. I went for a walk in the fan village, when I suddenly saw Lemieux on the phone waiting for someone. After he hung up, I simply walked up to him and took a picture with him. I told myself that I won’t hesitate, because who knows if I’d get to him at the stand. We did, thanks to which we didn’t only have photos, but autographs as well.

I don’t really want to go back to the actual game between Colorado and Detroit. The Red Wings scored the game-winning goal with a minute left in regulation and that just shouldn’t happen in rare games like this. We were cheering more intensely than during standard games and that is why a loss hurt even more. I would’ve given everything for an Avalanche victory, which would’ve made the memories even more beautiful. Because of all the disappointment, I decided to return souvenirs with the Stadium Series motive that I bought in the shop. I didn’t want to have such an unlucky game for the Avalanche in front of my eyes. It goes without saying that I didn’t get rid of my special jersey signed by almost every player. Anyway, even this game was preceded by a grand show. An overhead passing of jets was also part of it. The overall impression was spoiled by the strong wind, which kept damaging the surrounding wool cotton imitating snow, with several cotton balls even landing on the ice.

I also have to boast about my pre-game experience. I was standing in the lowest row, when I suddenly noticed Joe Sakic. He was probably going to an interview. I called him, as did a number of other fans standing beside me. Joe came, I took out my phone and wanted to take a selfie. It didn’t work and he had to leave. Instead of a picture with Joe Sakic, I had nothing. Great, don’t you think? One of my many nightmares, which keeps finding its way into my dreams at least once or twice a year, came true. It’s one of those bad dreams, where I lose my suitcase on the way to the US, where we miss our flight, or where I forget my marker for autographs and so on.

In the list of memories of this unlucky game, the first two places are occupied by different moments than the game itself, or my botched meeting with Sakic. I’m talking about my interview for NBC Sports and our trip to Las Vegas, which I describe in the next paragraphs. How did we make it onto the screens of a national US TV channel, let alone into its live broadcast watched by almost 1,7 million viewers? There’s a difference between regional channels, which only broadcast in one or more states, and national channels, which every American has. Just like the NHL.com Editor-in-chief, the producers of NBC Sports also noticed my press release about the start of the Eurolanche Invasion VIII. They contacted me a day before the game to enquire about an interview. We agreed on the entire thing in a matter of minutes. I think I don’t need to describe how nervous I was for what would be the hundredth time. Although I had some experience with interviews in English, it was never for national television, it was never live and not while being interviewed by an NHL legend. The legend I’m speaking about was Jeremy Roenick. Roenick was supposed to do an interview with me! I mean, he was supposed to interview me, not the other way around! Would you believe it in the moment someone would write this to you?

The agreement was as follows. Jeremy was supposed to come to us around midway through the game and we were supposed to record the interview. I knew nothing more. Nothing like during the majority of other interviews, where we agreed on questions beforehand. Maybe that was one of the reasons I didn’t really enjoy the game. I wanted to be done with the interview already.

At the halfway mark of the game, someone from the NBC Sports crew came to us. He told me to go to the entrance of our section. Jeremy was there. We shook hands and luckily agreed upon the topics he’d ask me about. I am glad that I’ve lost even the slightest bit of anxiety when coming into contact with anyone. Even if it’s a famous athlete or anyone famous really, I don’t feel even slightly anxious. Sadly, that doesn’t apply to live broadcasts. After a short briefing, I sat back and waited. Two minutes later, Jeremy and a few people from the crew came to us. It was a sizeable group of people. They caught the attention of the nearby sections with hundreds of fans. They immediately began to chant Roenick’s name. He greeted them and everything suddenly went so fast. It felt like each minute took only a couple of seconds. The people cheered and ignored the on-going game completely, with everyone holding their cellphones and recording Roenick. I felt slightly uncomfortable, but I tried to zone out and focus solely on Jeremy. Suddenly, our interview began. Without any warning! I was a little bit surprised, but I began by answering the first question about introducing the Fan Club. At the end of my answer, I couldn’t remember a word for the life of me, which is why I finished my answer by gesturing wildly and uttering the nonsensical phrase “We just hope”. Ha-ha. I still laugh about it, but when you saw the video, you surely noticed that I didn’t feel like laughing back then. Well, what do we hope for? Looking back, we do hope. We hope for better results of the Avalanche, we hope for bigger cooperation with the team... There’s a lot to hope for. Jeremy continued by asking how many countries and members are united as part of the Fan Club and finally, why I chose to support the Avalanche. I didn’t hesitate and answered properly. My answer was even so fast that the producers probably breathed a sign of relief that I didn’t begin to stutter and take away their broadcasting time. The interview lasted for 43 seconds, but it felt like eternity for me. Following the final question, the camera focused on our entire group, which held the flags of their respective country. It was one of the greatest moments in Eurolanche history and I’ll myself have to say that media-wise, this will be hardly surpassed by anything in the future.

The next schedule was easy. We went directly to Las Vegas. Boris and Alex chose to stay in Denver. The rest of the group got in the car, as we had 1,200 kilometers and 14 hours of driving ahead of us. We didn’t even get any sleep before departing, because we were on our feet since early in the morning. The road was monotonous. Luckily, three of us changed behind the wheel. If one of us began to drift from the road, which we found out thanks to the rumble strips near the side of the road and the ensuring sound it did, we made a change. We really partially fell asleep behind the wheel, but we knew that we had to arrive at our destination safe and sound. Somewhere between midnight and five o’clock in the morning, we began to run out of gas, with no gas station in sight. Until we came across a sign, showing that a gas station was supposed to be several kilometers past the turn it signaled.We were in the middle of nowhere.We began to understand where American horror movies get their inspiration from. It was really a scene resembling your typical horror flick. A ghost town, several buildings, a lonely gas station and us. We quickly filled up with gas and continued to Las Vegas. After the sun rose, we could finally see the vast deserts of Utah and, finally, those of Nevada. We arrived to Sin City before noon.

Our first impressions of Las Vegas? A city in the middle of the desert. We really drove for what felt like eternity, passing only sand and stones. We were met by a hot breeze after we exited the car. It was the end of February and it felt like summer. We went to check in at our hotel, which was at the same time also a casino. One of us lost his first hundred dollars after about five minutes. Then we went to downtown, which was about 15 minutes away from our hotel. Our steps led to the famous Las Vegas Strip, the biggest and most famous street in the city. There were casinos and luxurious hotels everywhere. Nothing else. Maybe except copies of famous landmarks, like the Eiffel Tower or the canals in Venice. Self-proclaimed artists and people inviting others to every event possible were everywhere. And that’s how we walked, me with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a cigar in the other one. Drinking in the streets is only legal in Las Vegas, as it’s strictly forbidden in other states. You’ll get punished even if you have an already opened bottle – it doesn’t matter if you opened it at home or not. Las Vegas was a different world. Las Vegas was Las Vegas and who’s never been there won’t understand.

We spent three days and two night in Sin City. It goes without saying that each one of us lost some money. We couldn’t cheat the slot machines, nor could we cheat the roulettes. The dollars kept wanting to get away from us. There was still light outside even after the sun already set. If New York’s supposed to be the city that never sleeps, it’s ten times truer for Las Vegas. The first evening felt like a dream.

We split up into smaller groups on the next day. My destination was the Heart Attack Grill fast food restaurant, which is famous for its gigantic hamburgers and is only in Las Vegas. If you don’t finish the biggest burger, the waitress dressed as a nurse will spank you with a cutting board.Otherwise, if you really finish it, they’ll bring you back to your car in a wheelchair. Wine is served in sacks resembling hospital IVs. Two restaurant mascots have died of a heart attack due to an unhealthy lifestyle and bad nutrition before turning forty. Anyone weighting more than 150 kilos gets a burger free of charge. Did I already mention that Las Vegas is crazy?

To get to this restaurant, I had to go pass through a sizeable part of the Las Vegas Strip/Boulevard. I had enough after two hours of walking. Yes, I walked straight ahead for two hours (and paid visit to the occasional gift shop), but still didn’t arrive at my destination. The sun was blazing and I had to wear thick jeans. I packed for Denver, not a seaside resort. Suddenly, I came across chapels, which began to appear on every side of the road. The chapel district! They were real and really offered weddings in a matter of minutes. You could get married with anyone you wanted. One chapel even referenced Michael Jordan’s wedding. Believe it or not, there was also a drive-in chapel offering a wedding in the comforts of your car without having to get out. Is this even legal?

While I’ve been walking for several kilometers, part of our group went to a lookout tower of one of one of the skyscrapers, while the other went shopping for cheap clothes. Eventually, I took a taxi to the restaurant. Otherwise, I would be probably walking until today. I ordered the smallest hamburger and had my problems finishing it. I also bought a T-shirt with the restaurant’s logo and went back to the rest of the group. After a short break at the hotel, four of us went to the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino. We were going to a performance by David Copperfield. We originally had the cheapest tickets for 100 dollars. When we arrived, one of the organizers offered us seats in the third row for as much as we would pay. We gave her about 50 dollars in total and didn’t regret it! David kept walking through the audience during his fantastic performance, high-fiving us and almost took one of us on stage. It was a great experience for me personally and I’ll certainly like to do it again, this time including a meeting with David, which cost 150 dollars back then and I couldn’t spent so much money on it. I was fine with a signed picture for 10 dollars. Business.

On the following morning, we boarded our minivan, took a photo with the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign and headed back to Denver. We planned several stops knowing that we won’t make it in one day.That’s why our road lead to the nearest border between Colorado and Arizona, where we wanted to find a place to stay the night. We ultimately ended up in Flagstaff, 1,000 kilometers from Denver, to where the famous Route 66 leads. What did we see and do? We saw the Hoover Dam, walked on a suspension bridge between Nevada and Arizona, with the states being in two different time zones one hour apart, rode through the Arizona desert, ate one of the most famous hotdogs in the world in the middle of nowhere and enjoyed the sight of the prairies and red rocks. The highlight of our program was a visit to the Grand Canyon. We spent two hours there. We were speechless. It was truly beautiful. Time and time again, a lot of the guys kept repeating that it was something they’d love to visit again someday. And to even get to that point in the future, we had to solve an already well-known problem – find a gas station. There’s not many of them in the desert. It took a lot of effort, and a lot of nerves, but we found one in time and made our way to Flagstaff to spend the night.

The schedule of the second day of our journey back to Denver was also packed, as we drove to New Mexico for a while. We began our morning with the visit of the Four Corner Monument (the only quadripoint in the USA) – it’s the point where Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico border on each other. We bought souvenirs from the nearby Native Americans and continued our journey to the Welcome to Colorful Colorado sign. We made it safely there. Our next stop was the Mesa Verde National Park with buildings carved into stone as old as thousands of years. We were fascinated by the view and the scenery. There were only a couple of hours left until it got dark and we chose not the pressure our already-packed schedule and decided to embark on the last part of our journey back to Denver. We drove almost 3,000 kilometers in five days. Our crazy trip was over and we still had several Avalanche games ahead of us. I met Jan Hejda at the Pepsi Center and we later met him and Milan Hejduk at a restaurant. Some of us had rinkside seats at one of the last games, while some randomly came across Patrick Roy in a souvenir shop in the Pepsi Center. We saw the Rocky Mountains, spent our last money and Robert with Boris went to a game of the Colorado Eagles playing in the ECHL. We really did a lot.

If you’ve made it this far, then you’ll notice that the description of our Invasion VIII experience was the longest among all Invasions. Deservedly so. We saw two outdoor games, met the biggest legends of the Colorado Avalanche, made it to NHL.com and the national NBC Sports channel, and went on an unforgettable trip to Las Vegas and back with a lot of great stops and attractions. Program-wise, the Eurolanche Invasion VIII was certainly the best in Fan Club history.

The six-pages-long material in a bigger format, which I handed out to several Colorado Avalanche and Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (KSE) employees during Invasion VIII, and subsequently during Invasion IX, was also supposed to be the best we’ve ever had and did. I still view it as the best representative publication we ever made. A team of people worked to put it all together. Its main goal was to briefly summarize and present the achievements of Eurolanche, as well as to present the offer of mutual cooperation with the club in several fields. Only time will tell if we were ultimately successful. I don’t really want to go into the details right now.

To continue in the set tempo, the entire 2015-16 season was the most successful Eurolanche season to date. It was mainly due to the Eurolanche Invasion VIII, its record-breaking number of participants from a record number of countries, its program and media success. We’ve achieved great things even before the start of Invasion VIII. Everything began in summer 2015, when we made it to the living room of Marian Hossa and took pictures with the Stanley Cup. Tomas Vnuk talks more about this experience in his story in the III. Period. We also managed to interview then-first round Avalanche draft pick Mikko Rantanen. It was the very first interview he gave following the draft if we don’t count the several words he said to TSN immediately after being drafted. And as if it wasn’t enough, the printed version of the biggest NHL magazine in the world – The Hockey News – published an article about us in December of the same year. Its author contacted me thanks to the press releases I regularly send out to various organizations, including the Colorado Avalanche. The one-page article titled From Europe with love is the biggest media success of the Fan Club together with the interview for NBC Sports. My personal story about how I tracked down three kidnapped children also somehow made it into the article. The author of the article somehow knew about it and wanted to know more.