"Saving Sakic" series to be released on Amazon Prime

[Hasbro]

and the worst Southern accent in history

Kevin Costner says "Hold muh gritz!"

A big problem was Ascent was trying to get the Pepsi Center built with private funds and the Denver City government was imperious to deal with. The process probably took 2-3years longer than it should of. They were trying to get the arena build before the Avalanche moved in. The Nuggets were also coming of an 11 win season.

 

[TheGreenTBer]

Kevin Costner says "Hold muh gritz!"

A big problem was Ascent was trying to get the Pepsi Center built with private funds and the Denver City government was imperious to deal with. The process probably took 2-3years longer than it should of. They were trying to get the arena build before the Avalanche moved in. The Nuggets were also coming of an 11 win season.

Fair enough, his was also horrid.

 

[VanIslander]

Save the kid who only spoke Croat at age 5!

True. But it's neither mentioned nor spun as an immigrant family's dream.

Yet his strange smile and quiet nature (he admittedly hadn't learned English until kindy) is hardly referenced.

 

[Smirnov2Chistov]

Never even knew about this (was 3 at the time). Looking forward to this event documentary.

Just hope it's not geo-locked for some reason

 

[Brodeur]

Never even knew about this (was 3 at the time). Looking forward to this event documentary.

Just hope it's not geo-locked for some reason

It'll be on ESPN+ (and Amazon in Canada).

 

[Neutrinos]

Why not "Saving Captain Sakic"?

 

[a mangy Meowth]

Of interest to Avs fans I'd imagine, but seems like an oddly niche story to choose for a whole series. Perhaps there's more to tell?

 

[Stephen]

Of interest to Avs fans I'd imagine, but seems like an oddly niche story to choose for a whole series. Perhaps there's more to tell?

I'd say I'm a Joe Sakic fan, was a big fan of that era of hockey, and probably liked the Avalanche best out of all the cup winners of the turn of the century... so I like a lot of the movie's ingredients. But when I saw the premise of the movie, I'm not really seeing the dramatic angle. Like hurray, corporate figured it out... but considering the City of Quebec had lost Sakic and the Avs just a couple of years before, I'm not feeling the emotional resonance of this too much. Plus Joe is a fairly mild mannered guy so it's not exactly a larger than life story.

 

[Brodeur]

Of interest to Avs fans I'd imagine, but seems like an oddly niche story to choose for a whole series. Perhaps there's more to tell?

I assumed it's only a single episode like the retrospective they did for Alexandre Daigle. To repeat what I said on the first page of this thread, it is an interesting 10 minute story so I'll be curious to see how they stretch it out to 45+ minutes.

Maybe the small amount of people who know the story aren't really the target audience. I have to remind myself sometimes that a sizeable number of hockey fans were born after something like this happened.

Maybe some those fans saw the latter part of Sakic's playing days and took it for granted that he spent his career with one org while not realizing how close he came to leaving. Would be like having a retrospective in 2030 about how Kobe Bryant nearly signed with the Clippers in 2004.

 

[Bondurant]

I assumed it's only a single episode like the retrospective they did for Alexandre Daigle. To repeat what I said on the first page of this thread, it is an interesting 10 minute story so I'll be curious to see how they stretch it out to 45+ minutes.

Maybe the small amount of people who know the story aren't really the target audience. I have to remind myself sometimes that a sizeable number of hockey fans were born after something like this happened.

Maybe some those fans saw the latter part of Sakic's playing days and took it for granted that he spent his career with one org while not realizing how close he came to leaving. Would be like having a retrospective in 2030 about how Kobe Bryant nearly signed with the Clippers in 2004.

It involves NYC media. They'll find lots of hyperbole to cover and stretch it out even if there was little relevance to actual events.

 

[Brodeur]

I'll probably toss it out as soon as the coast is clear with work.

 

[Brodeur]

Okay enough documentary. One interesting angle was that the Nuggets lost Dikembe Mutombo to free agency in the summer of 1996. The Nuggets finished 21-61 the next season. As a result, the team president was intent on matching Sakic in 1997.

Sakic doesn't show up until 27 minutes into the 48 minute doc and isn't really in it much. There's an unexpected cameo towards the end.

It's too bad Pierre Lacroix wasn't around to contribute. No mention of his side quest to get Vinny Lecavalier in 1998 as a possible long term Sakic replacement.

Another wrinkle that I didn't know was that Air Force One almost got pushed to November of that year due to Titanic and Conspiracy Theory wanting that same July weekend. History may be slightly different if James Cameron had gotten his movie completed earlier.

 

[I Hate Blake Coleman]

Saving Sakic is not worth the watch.

Towards the end, the doc goes off the rails for five minutes on something that has nothing to do with hockey or Sakic.

Sakic is barely in it and he's just like "yeah why wouldn't I sign???"

The journalism of the time is probably more entertaining than the doc.

 

[Hasbro]

Okay enough documentary. One interesting angle was that the Nuggets lost Dikembe Mutombo to free agency in the summer of 1996. The Nuggets finished 21-61 the next season. As a result, the team president was intent on matching Sakic in 1997.

Sakic doesn't show up until 27 minutes into the 48 minute doc and isn't really in it much. There's an unexpected cameo towards the end.

It took the Nuggets 9 years, tanking for the LeBron draft and the Pistons screwing the pooch taking Darko to recover.

I went to the Jimmy Buffet tribute concert last week and Harrison Ford gave an intro.

 

[FissionFire]

Its funny, because both Vancouver and New York started a sharp decline in the summer of 1997. Vancouver narrowly missed the playoffs while New York at least made it to the semis. But the Messier thing was a mistake for both teams. The Rangers should have kept Messier and the Canucks shouldn't have signed him. Fedorov was available that summer too and the Canucks should have tried to get him to play with the disgruntled Bure and Mogilny. Can you imagine that old junior hockey line back together? I think they'd have kept both wingers happy and that would have set them up for years in the future.

I doubt Vancouver could have topped Carolina’s offer sheet on Fedorov, especially that clause that resulted in him making 28 million that first year.

 

[Legion34]

Legit terrible. The weird 80s video game music/production value.

The title. Saving sakic. from who? He wasn’t kidnapped. He tried to leave. He says in it he wanted to go to NYR.

Just terrible. I didn’t mind the dangle one. This was brutal

 

[JackSlater]

It was fine, I enjoyed the hollywood stuff more than the hockey stuff really.

 

[Voight]

It kind of made wonder if Smith will bring in Dave Checketts in some capacity. Between his time in NY and St Louis, hes not an unfamiliar face in NHL circles.

 

[Hasbro]

I doubt Vancouver could have topped Carolina’s offer sheet on Fedorov, especially that clause that resulted in him making 28 million that first year.

For years Vancouver fans lamented going after Messier instead of Sakic that off season, but I doubt they could have come up with a harder to match offer than the Rags.

One thing not mentioned is Forsberg was originally in the off season as well and there was speculation of separate teams off sheeting them or successive offer sheets. Forsberg signed a friendly extension in the off season for three years. Since it graduated from $2M to $4M to $6M the Avalanche had less money tied up short term and more to match on Sakic.

Anyway losing Messier and losing out on Sakic, set of the trend of the Rangers trying to unsuccessfully buy their way into the playoffs. It got pretty annoying in Colorado because near annually they signed UFAs from here. They signed Keane (before the Sakic offer sheet), Lefevre, Kamensky, Fluery, Devries and Kasparitus from the Avalanche and couldn't get so much as an 8th seed.

 

[BraveCanadian]

It was kind of interesting to get some more behind the scenes info but honestly there was very little there to fill out the run time.

 

[Voight]

I doubt Vancouver could have topped Carolina’s offer sheet on Fedorov, especially that clause that resulted in him making 28 million that first year.

It would've been closer to $16 million (still a massive number back then and even today), 12 out of that 28 million was a bonus for his team reaching the conference finals. Canucks were unlikely to make it that far.

 

[Brodeur]

Even without the Messier contract, Vancouver was probably in a tight spot financially after matching the Mattias Ohlund offer sheet. Toronto frontloaded that one with a 7.5 mil signing bonus thinking Canucks ownership might pass. Vancouver was trying to sign Ohlund for less than 700K per season on a rookie deal (in the same article, it's mentioned that pre-breakout Markus Naslund accepted his 726K qualifying offer).

Now I wonder if the Vancouver ownership also was losing money with the Grizzlies and whether that made them an offer sheet target?

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Fedorov was available that summer too and the Canucks should have tried to get him to play with the disgruntled Bure and Mogilny. Can you imagine that old junior hockey line back together? I think they'd have kept both wingers happy and that would have set them up for years in the future.

fedorov and bure were in love with the same (ahem, underage) woman, so i don’t think it would have been happily ever after for those three

 

[FanOfFlyers75]

For years Vancouver fans lamented going after Messier instead of Sakic that off season, but I doubt they could have come up with a harder to match offer than the Rags.

One thing not mentioned is Forsberg was originally in the off season as well and there was speculation of separate teams off sheeting them or successive offer sheets. Forsberg signed a friendly extension in the off season for three years. Since it graduated from $2M to $4M to $6M the Avalanche had less money tied up short term and more to match on Sakic.

Anyway losing Messier and losing out on Sakic, set of the trend of the Rangers trying to unsuccessfully buy their way into the playoffs. It got pretty annoying in Colorado because near annually they signed UFAs from here. They signed Keane (before the Sakic offer sheet), Lefevre, Kamensky, Fluery, Devries and Kasparitus from the Avalanche and couldn't get so much as an 8th seed.

The Rangers and/or Canucks could have had both Messier and Sakic. Had someone signed Sakic on 7/1/997, then they would have gotten. At that point, Air Force One had not come out yet, and the Avalanche wouldn't have mad the money to match.

 

[Brodeur]

The Rangers and/or Canucks could have had both Messier and Sakic. Had someone signed Sakic on 7/1/997, then they would have gotten. At that point, Air Force One had not come out yet, and the Avalanche wouldn't have mad the money to match.

That was a lot of money in 1997 dollars, not sure if Vancouver could have afforded it. Plus the deterrent was giving up five first round picks in return if the offer sheet wasn't matched. Not every team was in a spot to spend a ton of money and give up the picks.

A few weeks later Toronto signed Mattias Ohlund to a bloated offer sheet (7.5 mil signing bonus) that Vancouver begrudgingly matched since they would have received no compensation if they didn't.