The Eurolanche book (16.)
Eurolanche will be gradually publishing the entire book about its history via its website throughout the summer.Until exhaustion (2016/17)
In July 2016, the Fan Club entered its 10th season. It was another dream that began to play out in front of me. Ten years? Our ten season? Was it really ten years already? I’ve never spent so much time with any other project, part-time, or regular job. Even my time at my former eight-year grammar school, which felt like eternity, lasted less. Eurolanche started to approach its tenth birthday. I didn’t only feel happiness, pride and satisfaction for me. I viewed it as a big challenge, which would take up a lot of my time during the coming months. I wasn’t mistaken. Even though the 2016-17 season still didn’t end as I’m writing these pages, I can honestly say that it was the most brutal and time-consuming period in the history of the Fan Club. Working for Eurolanche really became my second job. There wasn’t a day I didn’t do something related to Eurolanche. Ten years is ten years. I had the celebrate the anniversary of my own project in as much style as possible, even though it required much effort.
The first event we organized during our anniversary season was a member meeting in Brno. The meeting was mainly meant for all members seriously interested in participating in the Eurolanche Invasion IX. Initially, almost 30 members expressed their interest in Invasion IX, as they began to preliminary sign up back when Invasion VIII was still underway. Ultimately, it came down to 12 members interested in going to Denver. It was the eighth member meeting in row and had the most interesting schedule from my point personal of view.
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.
I began the first evening with a presentation of our 10th season and planned activities.That’s when I publicly (also via livestream) presented Eurolanche’s anniversary logo, which became part of our identity until the end of 2017, as well as the “Pure Love of Avalanche Hockey” motto, which was agreed upon by member of the editing staff of Eurolanche.com, as we thought the motto best captures our spirit, passion and dedication. The second presentation was directly linked to the Eurolanche Invasion IX – I suggested the program, talked about the flight options, about accommodation, food, as well as about the event in general. Also part of the presentation was getting to know the Invasion participation rules, which all members wanting to take part in the coming Invasion had to accept by signing the document. This was something I did for the very first time and looking back at it, I certainly don’t regret it, as it was one of the main factors why Invasion IX was so fantastic and without any problems. In terms of the content of my lecture and the depths of our discussions, the meeting was hands-down the most intense and content-rich among all and laid the foundation for the success of our ninth trip.
The second day was mostly about sport. We played soccer for two hours before noon, which was hard for most of us. Years without actively doing sport took its toll on me in the form of sore muscles and exhaustion. We continued with lunch, tasting of Czech beer, a fun laser tag game and caped it all off with bowling. Two weeks later, 10 from 12 participants of the meeting, including myself, confirmed their participation in Invasion IX.
The next part of our anniversary celebration was the preparation and development of the Story.Eurolanche.com website. I wanted to give our fans and members an overview of our ten years of existence in the easiest form possible. It was hard, but I managed to choose the top 24 photos from the past nine years, which became the website’s background. With a simple click, fans could view the detailed history of the Fan Club in English, German, Slovak and Czech; the anniversary infographic; the articles from the Member stories series (see III. Period); information about this very book and last but not least, fans could upload their picture in an Avalanche jersey or shirt to the anniversary photo gallery, or print out our anniversary logo and take a send in a picture with it. I thought it was important to have a website solely dedicated to the anniversary, which could later provide interested fans and members with a cohesive overview of the first ten years of the project they’ve been part of.
Sadly, not everything went as planned during our anniversary season. The first weekend in November became a sad part of not only our history, but also the history of the Colorado Avalanche. It was Sunday morning in Europe, when I received a message on Facebook from one of our members shortly after getting out of bet. “Hey. Marek Svatos died. Do you have any info?” Shock. My eyes grew wide open. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins. Nervousness. That’s how I felt in that very moment. I almost dropped my phone. My source didn’t have any additional information and I was forced to look for more by myself. No media reported anything. It was something, which still didn’t exist in the eye of the public. Even though I considered the source reliable, I couldn’t publish such tragic news without any further proof and references from other, separate sources. I can’t imagine what would happen, if I’d publish the news about Marek and it later turned out to be false (which we ultimately all hoped for). It would be a public disaster and would mean the end of Eurolanche.
As a former journalist, I knew very well that sadly, I received a common report about the death of a famous person. During my journalistic career, I met with the topic of death regularly. The death of everyone is a shock, which evokes negative emotions. But in the case of Marek, it was an even bigger shock. A professional athlete, still young, a former NHL player, a humble, very likeable and friendly person. And all of a sudden, he was gone. I didn’t want to believe it, even as part of me couldn’t imagine why and who would make up such a story in the small hockey community of Marek’s friends.
Sunday morning suddenly seemed very gloomy. My responsibility as Editor-in-chief of the main European website of the Colorado Avalanche was to investigate the situation. I didn’t know where to begin. Marek’s agent wasn’t answering my calls. It was late in the night overseas and all potential sources were asleep. Other sources didn’t know anything about the situation. That’s why I took the risk and called Marek’s sister, who lives in Slovakia. I briefly explained who I was and wanted to ask as sensitively as possible if “the sad news were true”. She told me that she wouldn’t comment on anything and hung up. I knew. I also managed to contact one of Marek’s friend, who confirmed the news. The news of the passing of Marek Svatos now came from three separate sources. It was the truth, which the hockey community couldn’t and didn’t want to believe during the following days.
After we published our article about the passing of Marek Svatos, we unleashed an avalanche of unfortunate messages. I really don’t want to come off as a journalist wanting to cash in on the death of someone else. I repeat, the death of a famous person is standard news in the media. It’s then up to each media how they edit their story and communicate with the surviving relatives. What’s true is the fact that our Eurolanche.com website crashed several times that day, because the server couldn’t process so many clicks and visits. At the end of the day, the numbers of visitors of Eurolanche.com was in the thousands.Tens of thousands.The total number of visitors rose by several thousand percent. Not only did we have a record number of website visits, which will be almost impossible to surpass in the future, but we were collectively cited by media from all around the world. All media in Slovakia reporting on the topic were citing us in their stories. Newspapers, magazines, websites, press agencies and even TV channels. Eurolanche was the initial source for everyone. Many even used my black and white photo of a candle, my picture with Marek and the jersey he signed all those years ago. Terry Frei from the Denver Post openly stated in his article that I was the first one who came broke the news. There’s no denying that this was one of the most successful moments in the history of the Fan Club media-wise. The article about Marek’s passing kept being the most-read article even many months after the tragic news broke. Trust me, everyone from Eurolanche would be rather if this success didn’t stem from the death of anyone, but from the success of the Colorado Avalanche or Eurolanche itself. It goes without saying that we’d give the success in exchange for the tragic event never happening.
The Eurolanche.com website was all in black and white as a form of tribute to Marek Svatos during the following days. We did something like this for the first time ever. It was the least we could do for him. Marek was the first Colorado Avalanche player to show us the team’s locker room. He also had lunch with the Eurolanche Invasion I group and Peter Budaj. Those are all beautiful memories, which we’ll always remember thanks to Marek. We honored his memory with several other articles.
Throughout the tragic week, I began to collect condolences from our members together with their recollections and memories of Marek and their pictures wit him. Ultimately, we created a 24-page-long photobook, which I personally went to give Marek’s wife in Denver during the Eurolanche Invasion IX. Since she wasn’t home at the time, I left it at the front porch by the door. As I’ve wrote her in the preface, it was an honor for us, Marek’s fans, to honor his memory. I’m aware that the weeks following his passing were difficult, but I also hope that we gave her something, which she’ll eventually look at with pride.
The last gesture I honored Marek with was his jersey, which he signed during Invasion I. I haven’t worn it since then. It was in my closet and waited to be framed together with my other jerseys. In the end, I wore it one last time, during Invasion IX. I wore it everywhere, to every game. It was a form of saying thank you for the way Marek treated us. May he rest in peace.
My main idea of celebrating Eurolanche’s anniversary wasn’t just with online activities, but with the organization of player meetings with former Avalanche players. We organized three in one season, a Fan Club record. All three of them took place a long way from the Czech and Slovak borders, the countries where we organized all player meetings in Europe up until then.
The first meeting was with Steven Reinprecht, who currently played in Germany. Alex Tanguay wasn’t playing anywhere, so it became apparent that he’d retire soon (which he ultimately did). Reinprecht suddenly became a sought-after piece of history – he was the last active player from the Stanley Cup-winning roster from 2001. For me, he represented an important part of history from a time, I couldn’t watch Avalanche hockey and supported the anonymous, faceless players via teletext or a PlayStation game.
In November 2016, three Slovaks and one Czech made their way to the meeting, with three local fans (one of them being an American living in Germany) already waiting for us at Nuremberg, where Reinprecht’s been playing for five years by then. After a six hour trip from Bratislava, we checked in at our hotel in Germany and went to bed in order to be as fresh as possible in the morning. Well, we didn’t exactly go to sleep. Two guys from our group, including me of course, watched Colorado play Vancouver that night. Sadly, we watched the Avalanche lose and it seemed that since that moment, everything that could go wrong for the Avalanche that season really did.
Saturday followed, as did the main point of the program. We went to the famous traditional Christmas market, took a walk downtown, visited a castle, as well as the courthouse, where the trials with the most prominent and important Nazis following World War II took place. Between all the classic tourist activities, we sandwiched in the most important one – a two-hour meeting with Reinprecht, which we organized with the help of his player agent Lars Wunsche. Steven seemed like a nice guy right away and answered all our questions. He happily remembered the times he got to hoist hockey’s Holy Grail as an NHL rookie. He was really interested in Eurolanche and also expressed interest in the Eurolanche Invasion project. We had a great debate, it was just like between old friends. Likely for the fourth time by then, the meeting further proved to me that the players from the older era are always humble, kind and generous. In connection with the younger generation in any sport, I began to think that without these character traits, they’ll never become champions. By the way, Reinprecht and I have something in common – we both „won“ our Stanley Cup in our first season. Him as a rookie player, me as a rookie fan.
Reinprecht gave us as many autographs as we wanted. We finished the meeting with a photo session and even shared a vision of a future meeting – either in Germany, or in Denver, where he plans to settle down after he retires (he signed a contract with Nuremberg for one more year). Full of enthusiasm from the good impression left on me by a hockey player, who was part of Colorado’s last big victory in the NHL, we continued to explore Nuremberg. In the evening, we played NHL Monopoly, the one I bought during Invasion I, for three hours.
On our last day, we attended the game between the local Nuremberg IceTigers against Munich. At the time, both teams battled for the top spot in the league. Prior to the game, I greeted Reinprecht, as well as Philippe Dupuis, another former Avalanche player, who played 86 games for Colorado between 2008 and 2011. Steven already managed to tell him about us, which is why he wasn’t surprised by our presence. The game was intense and fast-paced. The atmosphere was unbelievable. I’ve never experienced a better one in my life, probably only during Slovak league games in the very distant past. The home team was already down 1-5, when their goalie suddenly joined an ensuing scrum. It was like this moment signaled the turning point of the game. Nuremberg started to score goal after goal and ultimately won 6-5 after overtime. The arena almost collapsed from all the cheering and shouting. Reinprecht assisted on the game-winning goal, while Dupuis recorded two assists. I can’t forget that Reinprecht also brought me his stick after the game, just like he promised. A great player and an even better person.
The first weekend of January 2017 belonged to Uwe Krupp, whom we could meet thanks to the help from the German team Eisbaren Berlin (mainly thanks to their PR director), which is coached by Krupp. At this point, I have to mention that the organization of this and similar other meetings further proves the strength and success of the Eurolanche trademark. It’s not set in stone that each player or former player connected with your favorite team really has or even wants to meet you.The history of Eurolanche is a separate chapter by itself. The hard work of the entire team brings results, which we can rely on when arranging meetings like this. We really value opportunities like this. I just wanted to say that everything isn’t as easy as it might seem, even if it might go a little easier than in the past, but it’s all the hard work put in everything we do that makes all this possible. It often goes unappreciated, but it’s important that the key people value and respect all the effort.
Three Slovaks flew to Berlin to meet with Krupp. It was the first time we chose to fly to an event like this, since a plane ticket was cheaper than going by car. In Berlin, we were joined by an American living in Sweden, as well as two German fans, who had to travel to Berlin for several hours. The program was very simple – arrive on Friday evening, run to catch the subway, transfer to the arena, watch Berlin play the Kolner Haie, meet with Krupp, and explore the city during the next day and half.
Following our hour-long, problem-free flight, we landed in Berlin. We immediately ran to the subway in order to make it to the arena before the game began. We had to transfer once. I won’t forget what happened as we tried to transfer. We ran from one set of stairs to another one, up and down, up and down. We thought that we were transferring from one station to another, when in truth we were still at the same station! If someone saw us, he had to think we were crazy. We eventually realized our mistake and turned right, where our next station was. We made it to the game and witnessed the great atmosphere of the German league yet again. After the game, we went to the conference room accompanied by a team employee.
Right at the beginning, we were pleasantly surprised by the approach of PR director Daniel Goldstein, who introduced us to the present journalists as the members of the Eurolanche Fan Club. After a brief press conference, we took pictures with Krupp and had about 15 minutes for our interview, since he had other obligations. Krupp really put himself into talking about the golden era in Colorado that the interview actually lasted for more than 30 minutes. We also received valuable autographs. If you would want to know where the puck, with which Krupp scored the series-clinching goal in the Stanley Cup Finals in 1996 is, here’s Krupp’s answer: “Pierre Lacroix has it.”
We had another superb meeting with a great former Avalanche player. We learned new facts about his storied career and even learned about his close relationship with dog sledding. We spent Saturday and part of Sunday doing some sightseeing in Berlin. This included a visit of the Brandenburg Gate, a bus tour, German beer tasting, a visit of the German Parliament building, or a stop at the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie. Thanks to Eurolanche, I went to a city, a global metropole, to which I would’ve probably never gone if it wasn’t for the Fan Club.
The trio of meetings was capped off by the last weekend of April in Switzerland. We, four Slovaks and one Czech, had to spend 12 endless hours in a car driving to Fribourg near the French border. The meeting was organized with the help of Roger Rensch, the president of the now- defunct David Aerbischer fan club, who went on 10 overseas trips to Denver to see David between 1998 and 2008. On Friday, I went to work and took the rest of the day off after lunch in order to get some rest. In the end, I slept for about an hour. My work obligations didn’t permit more.
I departed Bratislava at about nine o’clock in the evening. We arrived at our destination almost 1,000 kilometers away at nine o’clock in the morning.We drove for 12 hours straight. Our longest stop was at a Burger King at three in the morning. I’ve never had a burger in the middle of the night before.
The first impression of Fribourg was unpleasant, but not unsurprising. The waitress didn’t want to let us into the café until we greeted her in French. We’ve heard about similar manners of other nations in the past. The second shock followed after we leaned the price of a small coffee – four francs, which is almost four euro. Switzerland. It’s probably the most expensive country in the world. I mean, a normal menu at McDonald’s cost 18 euro! Let’s put all the negatives aside and get back to David. He arrived shortly after us. We immediately flooded him with questions, which mapped his entire career since the beginning until today. We received new autographs, took pictures with him (me even taking a picture by my car, on which I have a Colorado logo and big magnets during trips like this, for the first) and went to the nearby hockey arena, where David grew up. We had a great feeling about the meeting. Abby also enquired about Eurolanche and we exchanged contacts. We’d love to organize a meeting like this in the future!
We went to downtown Fribourg for two hours, with the city enchanting us with its beauty. A 40-minute long transfer to Montreux followed. Freddie Mercury used to live there and even has his own statue in the town. The picturesque view of Lake Geneva blew us away. Perfect scenery, perfect cleanness and perfect weather. After an hour, we went to the village of Saint-Gingolph, one part of which is in Switzerland, the other one in France. You’ve guessed it. We went on the French site for a couple of minutes so we could say that Eurolanche even made it to France! Finally, we went to the mountain village of Ayent, where we spent the night. I’ll have to repeat myself, but the sights and the scenery were breathtaking. I couldn’t begin to grasp how the Swiss could’ve built villages and towns at such altitudes, where I felt like not even a car could get to.
We boarded the motorail train on Sunday, went to Thun, made a quick stop in the Swiss capital of Bern and headed for Liechtenstein, in the vicinity of which we spent the night. We went to the sixth smallest country in the world on Monday morning. About 40,000 people live on 160 square kilometers. We went to a castle, visited the Swiss border, downtown Vaduz and embarked on a seven-hour drive through Austria back to Slovakia. The result? I drove 2428 kilometers in three days. Sometimes, we didn’t surpass that number in two weeks during Eurolanche Invasions. Crazy. The meeting with Aebischer was the best player meeting in Europe to date and even had its own video report, which I edited back home.
Aside from interviews made during our player meetings,we also managed to interview (although not in person) a plethora of other interesting names. Among them were the new member of the scouting staff Miro Zalesak, newly-drafted goalie Adam Werner, as well as young stars like Mikko Rantanen. A.J. Greer and J.T. Compher.
Between meetings with Krupp and Aebsicher, we managed to squeeze in the biggest event of our anniversary season. The ninth trip to the US under the name Eurolanche Invasion IX. Apart from me, three other Slovaks, the same number of Czech and, for the first time ever, one Hungarian and one Finn travelled to Denver. Ten people in total, two less than a year ago. On January 11, 2017, the day of our departure, I left home at 3:15 a.m. to collect all three Slovaks, with whom I wanted to go to the airport together. When I got to my door, I almost had a heart attack. It was snowing heavily. I haven’t seen so much snow in Bratislava in recent years. I had to be careful to keep the car on the road, not to get stuck or drive too slow, and to make it through barely-lit parts of the road. I was nervous, because all it needed was one mistake, one small accident, and I would miss our trip to Colorado and thus endanger the participation of other members. Luckily, I somehow made it and all ten of us made it safely to the airport. At that time, I already noticed that we’d be a great group, which would get to experience unforgettable moments. This was only proven during the following two weeks.
Small tip: always try to check in online as soon as it’s available. You’ll have a bigger chance of being able to choose better seats. I tried for the first time the minute online check-in was available the day before our flight in order to choose seats for everyone. Sadly, only two seats with bigger leg room were available even then. Although I sat in the middle row with no windows and facing a wall, it was incredibly relaxing. In the recent past, I was almost traumatized by our endless journeys overseas crammed in tight quarters. With me being 190 centimeters tall, it’s really no wonder.
I finally had enough space during my eighth Invasion. You could write an entire book about the Eurolanche Invasion IX. The program was the busiest in history. We only had two weeks in the US, not two and a half like in the past.That’s why we had a short amount of time for a lot of things I planned. Actually, we almost had to plan our bathroom breaks, something which some participants could tell stories about. I really made their bladders suffer when we had to get from point A to point B without any breaks to make it all on time.
Invasion IX was specific, because all nine other participants were going to Denver for the first time. If I don’t count the first two Invasions, it was the very first time we went to the US with only a single fan who’s been part of an Invasion before. This meant more responsibility and presented a whole new challenge for me.
During our first six days in Denver, we were constantly on the move. Twice we waited for the players after practice. Joe Sakic stopped by on the very first day. We took a group picture, as well as several individual ones. I gave Joe our promotional material and our proposal of mutual cooperation with Colorado. The following day, we witnessed a race between four of our participants running up the stairs of the Red Rock Amphitheatre. We spent the entire next day driving through a buffalo reservation and through the Rocky Mountains. The group also attended an NBA game, as well as the first rodeo in Invasion history. Our visit to the Royal Gorge Bridge, the highest suspension bridge in the US, was marvelous. The weather was beautiful that day. We passed the gorge underneath in a cable car and had our hands full with keeping down the contents of our stomachs down when we looked out of the window and into the gorge. We went back through the bridge.
We also managed to attend three Avalanche game in the Pepsi Center, spent hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars on souvenirs in the official team store, where we received an unbelievable 30-percent discount on the occasion of our anniversary. We’ve never received a higher discount. Thanks again! The games didn’t make us happy at all. We saw bad and unlucky performances. Well, when everything starts to get bad, it gets bad real quick. At least the players stopping by us after practices cheered us up. Jarome Iginla is a great example. He always chatted with us, asked about our trip and never said no to us. Semyon Varlamov also came to us, shortly before undergoing the operation which would end his season. He may seem cold on the outside, but he’s a really big prankster, who even pulled one on our member, who suggested getting his stick like one girl did at practice. “And where do you have my jersey?” asked Varlamov and we burst out laughing.
We were also pleasantly surprised by the approach and attitude of other players like Mikko Rantanen, or Andreas Martinsen. Jared Bednar and Nolan Pratt even knew us beforehand. Bednar even heard us in the crowd. Upon asking about his roots, since he has a Czech-sounding surname, he answered that he’s of Ukrainian descent. One of our members than said that it meant we were brothers (Slavs), following which Bednar and we burst out laughing. Coach Pratt even told us that he regularly reads our news and reports. It was a wonderful experience and we are thankful that we could experience it first-hand.
Our five-day stay at the West Coast was an individual chapter of Invasion IX. On one morning, we flew to Los Angeles to see as much as we could from California, while also attending two Avalanche games in Anaheim and San Jose. We spent the first day in LA. We were surprised by our motel in a very strange neighborhood. Although it looked nice and clean from the inside, we still didn’t feel all too well about the whole thing. We couldn’t miss taking a group picture in front of the Staples Center. Some of us didn’t properly understand the ticket salesman and thought that the tickets for the evening game cost 10 dollars. They were already imagining sitting beside Hollywood celebrities, when they realized that the tickets cost 75 dollars. No game for them. We kept mocking them if they didn’t want to see a game for 10 dollars beside Tom Cruise for a very long time.
A two-hour trip to the Hollywood sign on foot was an interesting experience. I’ve never experienced anything like it in the US. Beautiful forests, the scenery and a pretty brutal uphill trail. We eventually did it and even managed to visit the Walk of Fame and buy a bunch of souvenirs.
We woke up at five in the morning on the next day to go to another interesting destination – to Mexico! Andy, our friend from Invasion II who also spent two weeks in Europe during his own Invasion and stayed at several Fan Club members like Nick did, joined us in our 15-eat van. We intentionally chose to drive the scenic route in order to make as many photos of the Pacific Ocean as possible. After about three hours, we finally made it to the Mexican border. We left the car on the American side, because no rental service allows its cars into Mexico. Maybe for a hefty sum of money. That’s why we walked into Mexico on foot.
We laughed at the sign reading Mexico with a lot of pointing arrows. It all felt unbelievable. First of all, we came to the US for hockey and suddenly, we were walking to Mexico. Who from the group would’ve thought that he’d even get to Mexico? We crossed the border without any problems. It felt like we entered a different world. Damaged, muddy roads, or no roads at all. Rundown houses. Poverty. From the Mexican side, we noticed the gigantic queues of cars waiting to get to the US.
We continued to Tijuana. In the town square, we bought our first souvenirs and drank real Mexican tequila. It felt like we were in a land of wonders. Like it was all a dream. We walked several meters and suddenly entered a different culture and saw entirely different people. We also couldn’t leave out an original taco. While we ate, one Mexican heard the word Magyar (meaning Hungarian in Hungarian) and came up to us. His mother was from Hungary, so he had something to talk about with Barnabas, the Hungarian from our group. Following a group picture taken on a road leading to who knows where, we went back to the small town square, where we ordered beer for a laughably small sum compared to the prizes in America.
Some of us wanted to go into one of the countless shops, while the other part of our group, including me, wanted to go back to the US. Once again on foot, but through a different entrance marked specifically for entry into the States. We feared that the queue of people would be as long as the one on the road, which would hamper our plans of seeing the Avalanche play in Anaheim in a couple of hours. We only had to wait for several minutes and got across the borders without complications. On our way out of Mexico, we had the chance to look at the nearby big wall more closely. It was ironic to explore all this only a day prior to Donald Trump’s inauguration. Later, I even found out that on the day of our visit, Mexico extradited drug lord El Chapo Guzman, formerly the most wanted man on the planet.
We sat on a nearby ledge and waited for the other guys. They were nowhere to be seen and we started to get nervous, as well as worried about their safety. I asked the American policemen and custom officers, if there’s another entrance back to the US. They said no. A few minutes later, the others called and told us that they were already waiting by the car. They apparently found another border crossing, about which I rather don’t want to know anything about.
We made it to the evening game between Colorado and Anaheim. The local fans were extremely quiet. Our voices were the loudest in the entire arena. I even shouted Avalanche chants at one moment when I was going up the stairs to our seats. The entire section of home fans looked at me like I was crazy, but they didn’t do anything else. After the game, we drove to Buttonwillow, where we stayed until the next morning. We arrived in San Francisco the following day, where we spent a day and half, visiting the city’s top attractions – we were at Alcatraz, saw Pier 39, rode the famous cable car and went to the Golden Gate Bridge.
The next evening, we made our way to San Jose. The price of the last available tickets was an unpleasant surprise – 50 dollars to stand in the last row. Well, what can you do? We didn’t have a choice. We fist bumped the Avalanche players as they went back into the locker room after their pre-game warm up. The Sharks fans were a little louder than the fans in Anaheim during the game, but they still didn’t understand why we cheered so loudly during the game. They probably never saw such dedicated European fans. That’s probably the reason why a number of organizers changed standing beside us during the entire game. The breaking point occurred during the second intermission, when we sat on the floor. They called for security, who then wanted to throw us out of the arena. Apparently, because we had standing tickets, we weren’t allowed to sit down. Ever. The employees didn’t care that I had another long road of driving to the next motel ahead of me. Rules are rules.
Least I forget, the Sharks arena was ugly. The inside of the arena resembled a construction site. Unfinished concrete colossi. Sadly, we witnessed another loss, after which we headed to Coalinga in order to be nearer to the airport in Los Angeles for our flight next day. In the evening, I made an agreement with the owner of the motel to leave us in our rooms until 11 a.m. instead of 10 a.m. It was quite a shock when he told us at 9:50 that we had until 10:15 to get out and that we didn’t agree on anything. We had to pack as quickly as possible, because we had one big suitcase for five people, as we wanted to save money on luggage fees. The rest stayed at Denver at the house of our friend Nick. We somehow packed everything and I even managed to take a shower, even though I didn’t wipe myself dry and was wet for two more hours.
We were hit by a storm on our way to the airport in LA. A heavy storm. We began to worry that we might not catch our plane. In the end, we made it to the airport on time, but we found out that our flight was delayed for more than two hours. Great. Fortunately, we flew from LA that evening and finally returned to our sweet home, Denver.
We still had the last three days in Denver ahead of us. We used them for shopping and a tour of the city. We met the players for the last time, this time even after games. Thanks to Kroenke Sports Charities, we received souvenirs for contests for our members and most active contributors for the first time in Invasion history. Among them were two flags signed by the entire team with a certificate of authenticity, as well as pucks signed by Iginla, Duchene, Landeskog and others. Beautiful gifts, for which we are still very grateful. CBS Denver aired a report, with statements not only from me, but also from our programmer Jakub Klos and Barnabas from Hungary. The interviews were directly published by the Denver Post thanks to Terry Frei, or by MileHighSports.com. Alexis Perry also made an interview with us on the jumbotron of the Pepsi Center. The interview aired during one of the stoppages during our last game. Since CBS Denver also aired an interview with us, the Eurolanche Fan Club has thus made appearances on all big regional Coloradan TV channels (on Altitutde TV and Fox 31 in the past). We supposedly appeared in the weekly show on Altitute TV after Invasion IX.
The Avalanche lost all seven games we saw, but everyone had a good overall impression from the trip. We stayed at a fantastic hotel with a heated outside pool, we had so many laughs, saw and been to so many places that every will remember Invasion IX as one of the best experiences of the life, if not the best experience ever. Those aren’t just my words, those are the words of everyone from the group, who shared their opinions and impressions.
The Eurolanche Invasion IX contributed to the fact that the 2016- 17 season became one of the most successful seasons in Eurolanche history. Part of the season were three meetings with former Avalanche players, a member meeting in summer and newly-launched projects. I’d like to mention the websites Story.Eurolanche.com, as well as the GlobalSeries2017.Eurolanche.com website. The second website is dedicated to the two games between the Colorado Avalanche and Ottawa Senators scheduled for November in Sweden. The NHL officially announced the games in March 2017, during our 10th season. We couldn’t have wished for a better present.
The season of the Colorado Avalanche: Following the sudden departure of Patrick Roy before the start of the season, Jared Bednar was named the team’s new head coach. During the season, both Jarome Iginla and Cody McLeod, the longest-tenured Avalanche player, left the team via trades. Despite the arrival of new faces and the signings of fantastic new contracts with key players, we’ll remember this season as the worst historically worst season of the team, which finished dead last in the league with only 48 points.
Memory fragments from Eurolanche Invasions
My approach to creating this book was as follows: I first wrote a text, then edited it for a long, long, long, long time and finally, I chose photos, either for the cover, or for the photos section of this book. While I looked at the photos, several moments from the first nine Eurolanche Invasions, about which I’ve forgotten about, came back to me. I realized that not even 500 more pages would be enough to write about everything me and other Fan Club members experienced during our Invasions. That’s why I’m including several more memories and stories at the end of this part of the book.
• During Invasion I, I took a picture in front of the Denver Hard Rock Cafe. All of a sudden, I created a ritual – I take a picture at approximately the same place every time I return to Denver.
• During Invasion I, I got to play hockey thanks to Jody and her boyfriend. The problem was that I had no gear, which is why I went to borrow it. The gear was incredibly small and way too tight. The skates were so sharp that I almost fell down. I scored one goal. Into my own net.
• During Invasion III, we noticed a restaurant in downtown Denver with a sign saying they made the best burgers in town. Wrong! The burger was flooded with oil.
• During Invasion IV, Matej wanted to go to Victoria’s Secret to buy a gift for his girlfriend (now his wife). He typed the address into the navigation and we took a free shuttle from the hotel. We got off somewhere near a refinery. It was clear that no such shop was anywhere near here. We ate at the nearby gas station and went back to the hotel.
• During Invasion V, I met Kristopher Slocum, a friend of Jake Schroeder. Kris is the only Detroit Red Wings fan I like. Why? Because he gave me a framed authentic Shjon Podein jersey signed by him, which he had in the bar he owned. We drove through half of Denver with the big frame in the truck bed of Nick’s car. Unfortunately, I had to destroy the frame because I couldn’t otherwise take the jersey back to Slovakia. Thank you, Kris!
• At the end of Invasion V, Nick and his mother took us (me and Rudo) to a wind tunnel. Perfect experience, thank you!
• During Invasion VI, almost all of us fell ill and I even needed urgent medical care at the end of the trip. Thank you, Tony Caya, for everything! • During each Invasion, we shop at Bill’s Sports Collectibles. The guys always give us discounts. Thank you, we’ll be happy to come back!
• Two years in row, I couldn’t get into a shop with Titanic-themed souvenirs. Both times, I went there on Monday, the only day of the week the shop is closed. I always forgot about it.
• Nick, I’m sorry, but I just have to. We went to a bar during Invasion
VI. Nick celebrated a little too much. In the end, he even “fell asleep”. I was the only one still sober. I took him to the car. I don’t know if we even had navigation. Anyway, it was real fun. Fortunately, we found Nick’s house and brought him home.
• I have no idea when this happened, but I remember once being so angry at someone trying to force something on me in English that I said “Mrs., I can’t understand you” in Slovak language and walked away.
• During Invasion VII, I went a little “crazy” with our rented car. I was turning a corner near our hotel when the car suddenly slid and I hit the curb. A small part fell off from the drive wheel. We got an even bigger and better car from the rental company for free on the same day.
• Only once during our first nine Invasions did it occur that a participant couldn’t go to Denver. The person faced losing all the money he invested into the trip. Luckily, we found a replacement, who could enjoy the unforgettable Invasion VIII.
• During Invasion VIII, we rode snowmobiles in the Coloradoan mountains for two hours. An unbelievable experience!!! How did I forget about it?
• In Las Vegas during Invasion VIII, I took a picture of a homeless man at the Las Vegas Strip. A few hours later, I took a picture of another one a few kilometers further at our hotel. It took years for me to realize that it was the same person.
• While returning from Invasion VIII, our plane had to circle above the ocean not far from Great Britain. Due to heavy mist, we had to land somewhere near a village. We had a four-hour delay. We returned home with a delay of more than ten hours.
• A memorable story: one of the Invasion VIII participants bought three clothes irons from a pretty saleswoman. When he realized that it wasn’t worth the several hundred dollars, it was already too late.
• When I’m lying in a heated pool, it’s zero degrees outside and I breathe the fresh air of the Rocky Mountains, I tell myself that life’s okay. I’m happiest in Colorado.
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29/08/2018 - 21:51
