When Joe Sakic opened his equipment bag recently to begin preparations for the Feb. 26 Red Wings-Avalanche alumni game at Coors Field, he carefully checked for … well, for whatever can find its way into a zippered equipment bag over the course of a couple of years.
When nothing seemed amiss, he started skating.
“It’s coming,” the Avalanche general manager said of his conditioning Thursday at Family Sports Center. “It’s not where I want it to be. But I ran out of time. No choice now. The game’s a week away. We are where we are now and we’re all excited to play in the game and get through it healthy and then the next morning put the equipment back up in the garage.”
Will this alumni game be a complete lark or will the competitive juices get flowing?
“I think the first period is going to be, ‘Let’s get into the game,’ and try to get the flow going,” Sakic said. “From everything I’ve heard, and I’ve talked to some of the Detroit guys who have played in them, if the game is close, intensity will pick up. But I know on both sides, we don’t want to embarrass ourselves.”
Sakic said, “I think I’ve skated four or five times now. The equipment feels comfortable now. I’ll get maybe one more in next week before the game. I’ve realized in the last three or four skates that I’m not getting any better, I’m just getting more comfortable.”
Sakic was asked about the perception that there’s at least as much interest in the alumni game as the Red Wings-Avalanche Stadium Series game the next day.
“I don’t think that’s the case, but what I do think is the rivalry we had, it was just an incredible rivalry,” Sakic said. “It was great to be part of that. The further you are away, and it was a long time ago, and I know I speak for myself and probably a lot of players that were part of it, I think you look back and really appreciate being part of something like that. That was a special time for the two organizations. Obviously it was heated, the two teams didn’t like each other, but you had a lot of respect for everybody that was part of that.”
A little later, Avalanche coach Patrick Roy, who has put on the goalie equipment and gone on the ice several times in the past month, said the experience “gave me a good idea of why I retired.” He added, “But it was fun. I had a good time. I realized that it’s taxing for the body, but at the same time, I enjoyed doing it. It’s going to be a great event, going outdoors and playing with the guys who have retired. It’s going to be very special for me.”
He said of the Avalanche alumni’s best-known defensemen: “(Rob) Blake, (Ray) Bourque and (Adam) Foote, they better play hard.”
Like Sakic, Roy said he hadn’t participated in a full-fledged outdoor game before. But he said he played outdoors growing up in Quebec City. “My dad made a rule, when it got dark you had to be back home,” Roy said. “I always broke those rules.”
Footnotes. Roy said Calvin Pickard will be in goal Saturday at Edmonton and Semyon Varlamov will play Sunday at Vancouver … The Avalanche assigned defenseman Nate Guenin to San Antonio and sent goalie Reto Berra to the Rampage on a conditioning assignment. The moves were intertwined because Berra was activated from injured reserve and is on the NHL roster, meaning Guenin’s demotion was needed to open up a spot … Sakic said of the Feb. 29 trading deadline: “I’m not trading high picks and some of our top prospects for rental players. If we’re going to move some of those, it’s going to have to be for a player or two that’s going to help us down the line.” He added, “We could use a puck-management forward and a solid (defenseman). You’re not going to get top-four ‘D.’ Teams aren’t giving those guys up. But just to add some more depth, we’ve been trying to do and we’ll continue to try to do.”
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or @TFrei
