In the weeks leading up to the Avalanche’s first regular-season game Wednesday, Monica Strasheim’s 12-year-old son, Alec, wanted to buy a Patrick Roy jersey with money saved from his allowance.
When they couldn’t find Roy’s No. 33 stitched to an Avs sweater, Strasheim’s seventh-grader proposed another idea: for $150, he wanted to buy a current player’s jersey.
Mom’s response?
“I told him not to waste his money,” said Strasheim, a diehard hockey fan from Centennial. “I never thought I’d say that about the Avalanche.”
And to that, Avalanche supporters say: Join the club. The two-time Stanley Cup champions began their 11th season Wednesday night at the Pepsi Center amid thumping rock ‘n’ roll, flashing lights and a cacophony of cheering fans, many of whom wore jerseys emblazoned with the last names of their favorite players – from five years ago.
Chalk up the retro look to the changing economics of professional sports, some fans say, and the NHL salary cap that sapped star power from the team and forced out a steady stream of players from a perennial Stanley Cup contender.
Chalk it up to a longing for the pre-lockout glory days of Colorado hockey, others say, when fans could see Ray Bourque, Peter Forsberg, Patrick Roy and Joe Sakic playing together.
Sure, Sakic is still around, but now it’s John-Michael Liles, instead of Bourque; Marek Svatos, not Forsberg.
“It hurts to see the team disintegrate the way it has,” said Jeremy Salganik, 35, a software engineer from Aurora who has three Avs jerseys from years past, none of which sport a current player’s name. “I don’t feel like I connect with any of the guys who are playing, so I won’t wear their name.”
Gone are the days when fans would plunk down good money for a Forsberg or Rob Blake jersey and have a feeling that their guy would spend the rest of his career in crimson, blue and white.
Forsberg signed with the Philadelphia Flyers last year. Blake signed with the Los Angeles Kings this past offseason.
After the Blake loss, Justin Beasley, a 26-year-old fan from Denver, said it will be harder than ever to convince Avalanche fans to spend money on jerseys bearing names from the current roster.
“I don’t want to be the guy with a closet full of jerseys with names of guys who were traded or signed with another team,” he said. “To me, it should be an honor for one of these guys if I wear their number, and I don’t feel like they deserve that respect yet.”
One look at jerseys around Pepsi Center confirms the statement – Forsberg and Greg de Vries ask for directions to their seats. Blake is eating a cheeseburger with Dad; Chris Drury holds hands with Mom. Adam Deadmarsh is flirting with a hot dog vendor.
At the Altitude Authentics team store in the arena during a recent preseason game, the number of people wearing former players’ jerseys outnumbered current players’ jerseys nearly 3-to-1. Up to 20 percent of the names sewn onto new jerseys at the store belong to former players, a store official said.
A few miles away inside the Sportsfan shop along the 16th Street Mall, store manager Pete Martinez sees the same thing.
“If we were still able to get Forsberg jerseys, they’d be flying off the rack,” Martinez said, referring the the old Avalanche version of the product. “We still have some Blake (jerseys), and we have no problem selling those.”
But, he says, a Svatos or Milan Hejduk jersey might only be purchased every once in awhile.
“That’s not the way it used to be,” Martinez said.
George Gardner, the director of strategic communications at the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University in Boston, said the most successful sports teams market players to fans as likable, guy- next-door types willing to do whatever it takes to win.
In Colorado’s case, he said, the Avalanche’s past marketing of players from Forsberg to Adam Foote still resonates deeply.
“The downside to the marketing strategy is that you lose the player, but you’ve built him up as this larger-than-life hero who doesn’t really ever disappear,” Gardner said. “Essentially, these players have transcended the team.”
Even the players are noticing.
Ian Laperriere, an Avalanche winger in his second season with the team, sees Bourque’s No. 77 hanging off older women, and Roy’s No. 33 on boys too young to have seen any of the Stanley Cup championship teams play.
“When a guy is on the top, when they win, the fans never forget you,” Laperriere said. “Players like Forsberg and Drury scored a lot of big goals here, and that’s why you still see their names.They deserve it.”
In the meantime, Strasheim is trying to come up with a solution to her son’s problem while the season still is young.
“Maybe it’s best just to get a blank jersey,” she said. “But where’s the fun in that?”
Staff writer Robert Sanchez can be reached at 303-954-1282 or rsanchez@denverpost.com.
