Never seen anything like Cale Makar? You’re not alone. Neither has Claire Elston, who sat on her mother’s lap in the last row of the on a Monday night that felt as fresh and exciting as a new golden age for Avalanche hockey.
Yes, the 20-year-old Makar was way too young to be the first defenseman in NHL history to celebrate his professional debut in a playoff game by scoring a goal. But don’t even try telling little Miss Elston — all of 10 months old and sitting happily in Section 334 while wearing noise-canceling headphones over her ears and Avalanche colors across her tiny chest — that she should’ve been at home in her crib, fast asleep.
“Yes, itap way past her bedtime,” admitted Jack Elston, who took his daughter to her first NHL game earlier this season. “But she has been to one more Avalanche game than Cale Makar. And she’ll know about this night forever.”
None of the rest of us will ever forget Makar’s first game in an Avs sweater.
“It was pretty weird,” Makar said, after the Avs routed Calgary 6-2. “But pretty special.”
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And a child shall lead them back to Stanley Cup glory?
OK, letap not get ahead of ourselves. Makar might not be the savior for a franchise that hasn’t won a playoff series since 2008, but what he did in his pro debut was stranger-than-fiction, freaky good.
“Itap a weird feeling playing against the team you grew up loving,” said Makar, a native of Calgary.
Suffice to say the kid got over it. He made himself at home very quickly.
With the Avalanche already leading the Flames 2-0 late in the first period, Makar skated across the blue line into the attack zone, trailing the jet stream of teammate .
MacKinnon dropped Makar the puck, and the kid busted a move toward the crease. What happened next is how legends are born.
Despite having Mikael Backlund of Calgary draped on his shoulders, Makar fired the puck past Flames goalie Mike Smith, scoring his first NHL goal on his very first shot of his career.
As public-address announcer Alan Roach bellowed, “Avalanche goal!” over the arena loudspeakers, the roar of 18,098 of the rookie’s new best friends swallowed what remained of the scoring summary before Roach could add: “Cale! Makar!”
It was quite possibly the most goose bump-raising welcome to Colorado for any rock star since Bono and U2 headlined their first gig at Red Rocks under a blood red sky way back in 1983.
“I asked him before the game: ‘How do you feel? Nervous?’ ” recalled MacKinnon, who kindly checked Makar’s heart rate before the puck dropped. “He just said: ‘Good. You?’ And itap like my 500th game.”
The sign of the night was waved by a spectator giving a salute to both an old Ashton Kutcher movie and the UMass defenseman, whose arrival was anxiously awaited by Avalanche fans all season long: Dude, where’s Makar?
Although Makar played as recently as Saturday for UMass in the championship game of the Frozen Four, the kid didn’t require formal introductions to his Colorado mates.
“I watched quite a bit of them (on television),” Makar said, “when I wasn’t during homework or other stuff.”
Hey, dude. Where’s Makar? At the library, studying?
No way. There’s a hockey game on television.
A little more than 24 hours before taking the ice for the first time in a televised NHL game of his own, Makar signed a contract that will pay him an annual base salary in excess of $800,000 annually.
Not a bad first job for a college dropout, eh?
“I remember when I first came (in the league), I was shy and didn’t want to yell for the puck,” said MacKinnon, who heard Makar screaming for a pass prior to the rookie’s goal.
So letap raise a frosty mug in honor of Makar and toast all the goals to come.
But first we’re obligated to ask young Mr. Makar, whose cheeks turn a cherubic shade of rosy as he returns to the bench after a hard shift, for some identification.
Makar was born Oct. 30, 1998. So I’m afraid he won’t be able to be legally served an ice-cold Coors around here until next autumn. But, trust me, Makar will never have to buy another beer in his life in this state.
“He’s a stud,” MacKinnon said.
On a perfect spring evening in Denver, it was a spiritual experience to be inside a hockey church that hasn’t rocked like this since and Peter Forsberg were in their prime.
Can I get an amen?
And what did everybody, from 10-month-old Claire Elston to her grandpa Todd, want to get up and shout as the Avalanche took a 2-1 series lead against the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference?
We are all Cale Makar!
And today we all feel 20 years old, unbreakable, unbeatable and certain the whole wide world, not to mention Lord Stanley’s Cup, is ours for the taking.
