For David Aebischer, the NHL lockout was a Swiss miss.
Other than getting married to his longtime girlfriend, Alexandra, the Avalanche goalie did not have a lot of fun in his native Switzerland during the canceled NHL season.
He was rebuffed by his hometown Swiss League team, Fribourg, because it could not afford him – despite his willingness to play for the league minimum. So he signed with nearby Lugano, which put him up in an apartment that apparently won’t make Architectural Digest anytime soon.
“It was dark and too quiet and not very nice. In the wintertime in that town, it’s kind of dead,” Aebischer said. “I thought I was only going to be there a few weeks. Otherwise, I might have found something nicer. I sure missed the NHL (life). I would have come back here and played for free if they’d let me.”
Aebischer, 27, would sit in the gloomy apartment, scouring the Internet for any hopeful news about the end of the lockout. He played just 18 games for Lugano, which only contributed to his boredom. For reasons that still aren’t clear to him, he didn’t play much until January. He compiled a solid 13-2-3 record, but his team was quickly eliminated in the playoffs because of a lack of offense.
Perhaps nobody was happier when the lockout ended than the man they call “Abby.”
“At first it was kind of fun, because I was close to my family and I was in Switzerland again,” he said. “That was fun for about a month, and then you started to miss Denver and the NHL a lot. When it was so close to getting done (in February), my bags were packed. I came home at, like, 3 in the morning and started packing. Then the next day, I heard it was all just a rumor. It was very disappointing.”
Aebischer is ensconced again in his Denver digs, which now include the Mrs. Aebischer. Life is sweet again.
“I missed everything that goes with the NHL, from playing to road trips, to being here, to just being with the guys,” he said.
All the quiet time in Switzerland allowed Aebischer to look back on his life, at the paths nearly taken, and marvel at how unlikely a life in hockey seemed at times. And to appreciate how lucky he is.
During his late teens, Aebischer’s life consisted of working four days a week in a Fribourg cooling and heating business, while going to school one day a week. After getting the equivalent of a high school diploma, Aebischer planned to go to school for two years to study architecture as part of the heating and cooling business. Before enrolling, however, he caught the eye of local scouts from the Fribourg team in the Swiss A League. He was making 12,000 Swiss francs a year, about $8,000.
He didn’t play much with Fribourg, just enough for the Avalanche to take a chance on him in the 1997 NHL draft, in which he was chosen 161st overall. From there, he played with Chesapeake (Md.) of the East Coast Hockey League, then in Wheeling, W.Va., for another ECHL team. From there, it was on to Hershey of the American Hockey League, and finally to the Avalanche.
After serving as Patrick Roy’s backup for three seasons, Aebischer took over as the Avs’ No. 1 goalie in 2003-04 and played well, going 32-19-9 with a 2.09 goals against average and .924 save percentage.
Aebischer is not worried about his game after spending a year mostly idle. He’s not thrilled at having slimmer goalie pads and other downsized equipment as part of the new NHL landscape, but that is quickly replaced by the happiness of playing again.
His attitude has been noticeable in the Avalanche dressing room.
“I played with him a little in Switzerland, and I know he’s very happy to be back here again,” Avs left wing Alex Tanguay said. “He didn’t play a lot there, which is strange. But I think he’s one of the best young goalies in the league, and he’s going to have a very good season for us.”
Said Aebischer, who probably will play for Switzerland in the 2006 Winter Olympics: “I’m not going to try to change the way I play. Hopefully, I can be better than our last year here.”
Staff writer Adrian Dater can be reached at 303-820-5454 or adater@denverpost.com.
