Opinion: Thanks to Colorado GM Joe Sakic’s patient but focused rebuilding, the Avalanche’s young and talented core looks poised to compete for years to come.
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bulls of the week
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The New York Yankees continue to compile a potentially historic season in Major League Baseball, coming into the weekend with a 56-21 record and a .727 winning percentage; a remarkable 35 games over .500 in what is arguably the toughest division in the majors. They have a long summer ahead of them, but the Bronx Bombers are on course for 118 wins, two more than the record of 116 set by the Seattle Mariners in 2001.
It has also been another bull market this week for Nathan Rourke, the Canadian quarterback who led the BC Lions to their third straight win of the young CFL season, a 31-28 win on the road against the Ottawa Red Blacks. Thursday night. It wasn’t the same caliber of commanding performance that Rourke put up in his first two home games this year, beating opposition from Edmonton and Toronto a combined 103-18, but it required the 24-year-old to show his composure. and bounce back after two Ottawa interceptions and a BC fumble in the third quarter to keep the Lions undefeated.
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Yet no individual or team in North American professional sports has had a bigger and better week than the Colorado Avalanche, winners of the Stanley Cup Finals series 4-2 over the two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning. The decisive Game 6 victory Sunday night at the Amelie Arena in Tampa prevented the Lightning from becoming the first NHL team to “triple” since the 1983 New York Islanders and gave Colorado its first Stanley Cup. in 21 years, the third in franchise history. .
The Avs are one of six teams in the salary-cap era (roster composition effective 1994-95) to win at least three Stanley Cups, joining the New Jersey Devils (1995, 2000 and 2003), Tampa Bay (2004, 2020 and 2021). ), Pittsburgh Penguins (2009, 2016 and 2017), Chicago Blackhawks (2010, 2013 and 2015) and Detroit Red Wings; the only franchise to win four during that time (1997, 1998, 2002 and 2008).
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Thanks to Colorado GM Joe Sakic’s patient but focused rebuilding, the Avalanche’s young and talented core appears poised to compete for several years the same way they did after moving from Quebec City in 1995 (and win in 1996 and 2001).
bears of the week
When the former Quebec Nordiques are the closest thing to a Canadian-based Stanley Cup champion in 29 years, you know there’s concern in the seven NHL markets north of the border. Fans can only long for the previous era during which four different Canadian franchises won Cups in 21 of 31 seasons before 1993, the last time a Stanley Cup parade was held in Canada (Montreal).
It’s also been a bad week for the PAC-12, which will never be the same after the departure of UCLA and USC to the Big Ten.
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However, no one has had a tougher week than Hockey Canada after several of its major corporate sponsors suspended their associations with the national governing body and its national U21 World Junior hockey team following revelations about alleged sexual misconduct that have been, at least up to this point, kept secret as part of a controversial legal settlement.
The exit of Scotiabank, Esso, Canadian Tire and Tim Hortons comes a week after the federal government froze Sport Canada’s funding for Hockey Canada.
Sports business commentator and marketing communications executive Tom Mayenknecht is a director of Emblematica Brand Builders and host of The Sport Market on BNN Bloomberg Radio 1410 and TSN Radio nationally. Follow Mayenknecht on: twitter.com/TheSportMarket
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