Eurolanche: Sakic and others congratulate Eurolanche + other anniversary stories

[EurolancheDavid]

EUROLANCHE BOOK COVER REVEALED. AVAILABLE THIS FALL IN BOTH SLOVAK AND ENGLISH LANGUAGES

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 played a part in 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 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 This book is a previously unpublished account of Eurolanche’s everyday functioning and a look behind its scenes, which often resembled a chaotic frontline, which we had to navigate through in order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 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, Overtime and Shootout. The latter two parts of the book contain “bonus†chapters, which didn’t find their way into the book’s previous parts. Additional bonus material is part of special paragraphs titled Commercial Break, which are scattered throughout each 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 another decade.

Click to read more...

 

[EurolancheDavid]

Eurolanche wouldn’t have survived for 10 years if it wasn’t for the help of a great number of people. My biggest dream came true during a game at the Pepsi Center in December 2008, but that didn’t stop me from continuing the Eurolanche project until today. Thanks to the great amount of support from others, I never stopped believing that its worth to continue and build something the NHL has never seen before.

A big thank you goes out to all Eurolanche members, who made financial contributions during the fan club’s initial season. The fan club wouldn’t have had a professional website and domain as fast as it did if it weren’t for them.

A big thank you to Jody Robinson, Peter Budaj and Marek Svatoš, who played instrumental roles during the first Eurolanche Invasion. Jody allowed us to stay in her home for free. She also sent me several souvenirs from Colorado before the flight, which increased my motivation even further. During our stay in Colorado, she was both our host and our guide. If it weren’t for Peter Budaj and his promise of help with game tickets and behind-the-scenes passes, who knows if we would’ve even gone to Denver as an organized Eurolanche group. His interest in our group during our stay was exemplary and made us feel more at home. Thank you, Marek Svatoš, for taking us to the locker room for the first time, for an exquisite lunch and a great attitude during the entire Invasion.

I’d like to thank Jan Hejda, a great person and a big friend of ours, who didn’t only devote his time to us during his four-year stay in Colorado, but also afterwards and in Europe. His attitude towards fans could serve as an example for others. I’d also like to thank Milan Hejduk for always finding time for us, even when he’s busy with his work.

During each Eurolanche Invasion, we’ve been in contact with Colorado Avalanche and Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (KSE) representatives, who helped us as much as possible. I’d like to express my gratitude to Jean Martineau, Brendan McNicholas, Ron Knabenbauer and, last but not least, to Lesley Linscott.

Not only in my name, but in the name of all Eurolanche members, I’d like to thank all Colorado Avalanche fans, who found the time for the crazy Europeans from the other side of the world, gave them a lot of autographs and took pictures with them. We really appreciate that the majority of Avalanche players were like this. Their autographs always found their way to our members, who couldn’t make the trip to the US, either in the form of competitions, or rewards to the most active ones. I’d also like to thank the coaches and all other staff members headed by Joe Sakic, who always stopped by our group.

The Eurolanche Fan Club wouldn’t be in the state it’s currently in without the help of other people. Even at the deadline for this book, our website www.eurolanche.com publishes at least three articles in Slovak/Czech per day during the regular season, which makes it the most active Colorado Avalanche fan site in the world. A big thank you goes out to the entire current editing staff, as well as to former editors, who created and continue to create content for our website and social media accounts without being paid. Their dedication, reliability and punctuality are truly exemplary.

Despite the editing staff working as one group, I’d like to single out several tenured editors in alphabetical order, because I couldn’t appraise their contributions otherwise. Braňo Bukový is one of our longest-tenured editors and he watches the majority of Avalanche games in order to write game summaries, no matter the result or team performance. Michal Hežely has the best English among all of us, which is why all our original English articles and all official material for the media, or directly for the Colorado Avalanche pass through his hands. Aside from his hard work figuring out and correcting our mediocre English, he also deserves a big thank you for the translation of this book. The role of Jakub Kantor is also irreplaceable. As a professional graphic designer with an own firm, he creates the entire graphic identity of Eurolanche and all its projects. All banners, infographics, logos, as well as flyers, guides and various other things are the fruit of his labor, which is why he deserves my gratitude. Jakub Klos is the nervous system of Eurolanche. He’s been our chief programmer since 2011. He continually improves our main website, or creates new sister websites. If it weren’t for his work as a professionally trained programmer, we would have never gotten this far. Rudolf Šerý is the vice president of Eurolanche and, aside from our betting competition Eurolanche League, has been supervising all activities connected with the functioning of Eurolanche that I can’t due to my lack of time. He also deserves a big thank you, as does our former editor Norbert Gruber and Tomáš Vnuk, who has helped me with our promotional material on several occasions.

I would like to use this opportunity to thank all friends and acquaintances of the Eurolanche Fan Club, who have supported us throughout the years in many different ways. Either with regular meetings in the US or Europe, media reports about our activities, but most of all, with words of support, which motivate us to continue to be even better. In alphabetical order, I would like to thank Josef Cafourek, Adrian Dater, Nicholas Daviscourt and his family, Terry Frei, Mike Chambers, Andy Kaya, Kyle Keefe, Conor McGahey, Peter McNab, Marc Moser, Petr Novotný, Nicole Sharpe and Jake Schroeder. A group thank you goes out to Filip, Petr and their team from the Czech restaurant Sobo151 in Denver, to Taylor, Gabe and their team from the official Avalanche shop Altitude Authentics, and to Pat, Debra and other Pepsi Center employees.

I’d like to thank all journalists, writers and reporters, who wrote about Eurolanche during the past 10 years. If it weren’t for their willingness to publish our story, significantly fewer people would know about Eurolanche.

A big thank you goes out to all Colorado Avalanche fans, who continue to support us. A special thank you to fans from Colorado, who gave us their game for free on several occasions and to those, who invited us to their homes. The list would be really long and I wouldn’t want to forget someone, which is why I didn’t choose to name them. I’ll remain grateful to them forever.

Last but not least, I’d like to thank my family and friends, who’ve gotten used to my regular trips to the other side of the world and aren’t scared to allow me to go away so far for so long (at least on the outside). I’d also like to thank my mother, as her attitude and benevolence allowed me to become a fan to a team on the other side of the globe and to lay the groundwork for this unique fan club.

 

[EurolancheDavid]

It’s here. Ten years. An awfully long time, yet it seems like it just flew by. I’ve never done anything for a longer period of time. I even went to high school for a shorter time, as I’ve attended an 8-years grammar school. Ten years is almost more than half of the time of me being an Avs fan. It’s been 17 years in total. Wow. That’s almost like a solid marriage. Truth be told, it is a marriage. At first, it was like a dream come true. With each passing year, new problems arose and while it’s in a crisis at the moment, it’s still intact. It’s a good marriage.

I’ve said it a lot during the past years. On August 12, 2007, I wrote several lines on a forum on Colorado’s website. “I’m going to start a European fan club,†were my words. No name, no logo, no ambitions. Let’s keep on discussing and we’ll see where it goes. Now, after 10 years, we’ve seen where it went. We witnessed nine Eurolanche Invasions and a lot of other activities, which I mention elsewhere. First and foremost, we’ve seen a couple of weirdos from Europe become a group cited by leading North American and European media and a group well known in the state of Colorado.

I’m very proud of Eurolanche. I’m proud that it’s become a brand, which exists on its own and continues into the future on a steady course in order to become a memorable part of history.

The Eurolanche Invasion I was like a miracle. The Eurolanche Invasion IX was like a return to a long-lost home. I’m eternally thankful for the moment I could exit the plane in Denver for the first time. It was a dream. A dream of a little boy, who used to secretly watch Colorado Avalanche games at night in his small bedroom. Suddenly, this little boy stood in the locker room of the Colorado Avalanche. Participants of the following Invasions experienced similar feelings. I’m glad that Eurolanche became like a dream factory. It’s obvious that the majority would’ve never gone to the US if it wasn’t for the Fan Club.

I think we can all be proud of ourselves. Us, who put their (free) time and effort into the Fan Club. We’ve achieved a lot and made it far. Our future steps and seasons will be even more demanding, but history already taught us that, looking back, ten years isn’t really that much. It’s all about the specific steps and acts we make. Even if some might think that we can’t achieve more, you can bet that we’ll always find a new goal we’ll want to achieve.

To achieve it in order to become an inseparable part of Colorado Avalanche history. Because if Colorado and the Avalanche will forever be connected, then so should the Colorado Avalanche and Eurolanche be.

 

[AllAboutAvs]

Congrats again on your 10th anniversary. You deserve all the good words coming your way.

I would also like to take the opportunity to congratulate you David on your English writing. It has improved a lot and is now very good.

Keep up the great work guys. Keep it coming.

 

[Balthazar]

That's awesome. Congrats guys.

 

[madman]

Congratulations! It's a labor of love for you guys, but you do a great job. You've come a long ways, keep it up!

 

[WarriorOfGandhi]

you guys are wasted on this franchise

 

[Avs44]

Congrats fellows. You all are fantastic, one of the best sources / source of coverage for this club.

 

[Frenchy]

Congratulation guys on your 10th anniversary, you always make an awesome job.

Here's to many more great years

 

[tigervixxxen]

Congrats and here's to 10 more years! Very glad you get to see a couple games in Europe this year!

 

[Pokecheque]

I'm bumping this because I haven't read it all yet but will sometime this weekend