They started as Canadian major-juniors teammates on the Swift Current Broncos of the Western Hockey League. In the 18 years since, completely different paths brought them back to Colorado with the fate of two local hockey teams resting on their shoulders.
Avalanche forward Joe Sakic was the league’s rookie of the year in 1986-87 playing for the Swift Current team, then was drafted the next year by the Quebec Nordiques. He has been among the NHL’s elite ever since.
One of Sakic’s teammates in 1986-87, Tracy Egeland, eventually was drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks but never broke through to the NHL, bouncing between 13 teams in six leagues over 21 professional seasons. His playing career ended with a shoulder injury in 2001.
Then, after coaching stints at Rio Grande Valley and in Lubbock, Texas, Egeland last May was hired to coach the Broomfield-based Rocky Mountain Rage, an expansion entry in the Central Hockey League.
The Rage opens its inaugural season tonight at 7 p.m. in Loveland against a burgeoning rival, the Colorado Eagles.
“It’s nice to be in hockey country, in a sports area,” Egeland said.
Egeland’s hockey history should suit him well with the Rage, a team full of aspiring young players looking to break into the big leagues. The Rage roster has locals (Chip Dunleavy, a Littleton youth player and graduate of Columbine High School); college standouts (John Ronan, a former captain for the Maine Black Bears); and television stars (Anders Strome, a cast member on the Canadian reality show “Bell” Making the Cut” starring former Red Wings coach Scotty Bowman).
“If they do their job and I do mine, we should get progressively better,” Egeland said. But the coach skewed common expansion-team talk: “Our goal is to win a championship.”
To make things even tougher, the Rage opens with the Eagles, perennial CHL powers who in just three seasons captured the 2004-05 Ray Miron President’s Cup as league champion and is the defending Northwest Division winner. The Rage and Eagles will face each other 12 times this season.
Tickets for tonight’s game at Loveland’s Budweiser Events Center are available at the arena box office.
WHAT WE’D LIKE TO SEE
Maybe the Broncos’ defense, already keeping the ship afloat as one of the best in the NFL so far this season, can start scoring points, too. Somebody has to. Eventually. It worked for the Bears, who scored two defensive touchdowns and one on a punt return to come back against the Cardinals.
WEAK IN REVIEW
The president of the University of Miami said the school’s one-game suspension of 13 football players after a bench-clearing brawl Saturday in a game against Florida International was an appropriate penalty. Who’s on the other end of that one-game penalty, you ask? It’s winless Duke. (Duke has a football team?) Oh, the justice. Does anyone think it’s a coincidence that Miami seems to always be one-half the involvement in bench-clearing brawls?
AROUND TOWN
Real Salt Lake has regional interest. And everybody wants to beat up DC United, the Manchester United of stateside soccer. But make no mistake, it’s the FC Dallas matchup that has really grown to be the Rapids’ rivalry. When the Rapids host Dallas for the opening leg of a two-game first-round playoff series Saturday at Invesco Field at Mile High, it will be the eighth postseason meeting between the teams – Colorado’s most-familiar playoff matchup. Dallas has gotten the better of the Rapids during the regular season, leading the all-time series 19-15-6. But the Rapids have eliminated Dallas in each of their three playoff series, including a penalty-kick upset shocker last year in which Colorado got through on penalty kicks. Much like last year, the Rapids will be underdogs in the game airing on Altitude at 7 p.m. As the fourth seed in the Western Conference, the Rapids will have their hands full with Dallas, the team with the most wins in MLS this season.
THE COUCH
ON: All three local college hockey teams are at home this weekend for two-game sets, with Colorado College hosting New Hampshire, Air Force welcoming Bentley and Denver going against RPI. But if you can’t get out to see the games live, only the Pioneers on Friday will be televised. DU, ranked No. 11 nationally, is on a 5-0 streak in home-openers and has a 10-0 record against RPI dating to 1954. The game airs Friday at 7:30 p.m. on FSN.
OFF: Intriguing recreational events are slim pickings this weekend. So why not get off the couch for a road trip? College football’s greatest draw, the detail that sucks in even the most casual of fans, is the long-standing regional rivalry. In this case, the Border War between Colorado State and Wyoming, playing out its 98th chapter in Laramie on Saturday at 2 p.m., will settle some brewing tension. Wyoming (3-4, 2-1) leads fifth-place Colorado State (4-2, 1-1) by a half-game in the Mountain West Conference. It’s unlikely the MWC would send five teams to bowl games, so this midseason matchup has serious implications. And to the victor goes the vaunted Bronze Boot, the traveling trophy once worn by a CSU grad and veteran of the Vietnam War. The Boot series is tied 19-19.
