Eurolanche

Eurolanche Raid 2017

On March 24, 2017, the NHL officially announced what was already being talked about in the hockey community several weeks prior to the announcement – that the Colorado Avalanche would get to play two games in Europe. On November 10 and 11, the Avalanche will square off against the Ottawa Senators in the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, Sweden. The games will be the first two regular season games the Avalanche will play in Europe, as well as their first appearance on the Old Continent since 2001, when the reigning Stanley Cup Champions spent a few days of training camp there before it was cut short due to the 9/11 attacks.

Thanks to several leaked news suggesting the event, we had enough time to prepare a special website – GlobalSeries2017.Eurolanche.com – which we launched at the exact moment the league officially confirmed the event. During the following days, the website offered Eurolanche members the opportunity to pre-register for the event and the Fan Club’s trip to Scandinavia. We received more than 100 registration forms from all around the world. No other event organized by Eurolanche garnered so much interest.

Since tickets for the games were supposed to be made available for purchase the following week, Fan Club members had to decide as quickly as possible. In the end, more than 52 fans from 10 countries and two continents decided to join Eurolanche on its trip to Sweden. Both the number of participants, as well as the number of represented countries, are the most in Eurolanche history.The numbers don’t even include dozens of other Fan Club members, who decided to travel to Sweden individually due to various reasons. One of my priorities was to take a group picture with as many Eurolanche members as possible in Stockholm.

The event later received its own name – Eurolanche Raid 2017. It was scheduled to begin on November 8 and end on November 12, so that we would have enough time for other interesting activities.

I wrote the paragraphs above in about two minutes. The entire organization of such a big event for so many people took me two full weeks of work. From dawn to dusk. Just take the number of preliminary registration forms we received. From the 100 fans who expressed their interest, each one of them had additional questions that had to be answered. It sure wasn’t fun, but after 14 endless days, I could finally say that not only did everyone already have game tickets (which we bought during the exclusive limited presale period), but that we also managed to book our plane tickets and accommodation.

During the following weeks and months, the program of the Eurolanche Raid 2017 began to take shape. We also began to upload content to GlobalSeries2017.Eurolanche.com, which we wanted to later serve as a tribute to the event like in the case of the StadiumSeries.Eurolanche.com website. Articles about the event, stories about previous Avalanche visits to Europe in the form of exclusive interviews with its direct participants, a gallery and, following the two games, stats, summaries and line-ups began to fill the newest sister website.

I thought about releasing this book by the end of 2017 to include a part about the Eurolanche Raid 2017. In the end, I decided against it because such a grand event with so many Eurolanche members in one place would be a great opportunity to present the book to the public. This is why you’ll be able to read everything about our trip to Sweden and our experience during the Eurolanche Raid 2017 at GlobalSeries2017.Eurolanche.com. I officially presented the book during our dinner in Stockholm on the second evening of our trip.

While I’m typing these sentences, I can only hope that it will be another great Eurolanche event. I can also tell you that each participant will receive a welcoming package with Fan Club souvenirs, including a T-shirt with the logo of the event, a custom-designed Viking head, after his or her arrival at the hotel.