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Sunday, November 22, 1998
Nords a distant memory for Avalanche
The Colorado Avalanche captain took part in a pre-game ceremony honouring his former teammates with the Quebec Nordiques -- Peter Stastny and Michel Goulet -- who were recently inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
It once would have been considered the unlikeliest of venues -- in the heart of enemy territory -- but so much has changed since the Nordiques became the Avalanche in May 1995.
"I told them it seems like only a year ago that we were teammates and now they're in the Hall of Fame," Sakic said. "I can't believe it's been so long."
Today, Goulet is the Avalanche's director of player personnel and sees Sakic regularly, but Stastny, the dynamic centre who made the Nordiques an instant power when he defected from Czechoslovakia in 1980, has no ties to his old team.
Stastny now lives in St. Louis and works on player development for the Blues.
When the Avalanche, unable to keep pace with spiralling player salaries, were sold and moved to Denver, it ended one of the NHL's great rivalries.
Only four years ago, Colorado's 3-2 victory on Saturday over the Canadiens would have devastated Montreal and unleashed a celebration in Quebec, just two hours up Autoroute 20.
Now, Sakic says, the thrill is long gone.
"A win is a win," he said. "We're past that.
"We lost big the other night (5-0 to Vancouver) and we needed a big performance."
Stastny finds it sad.
"The rivalry was incredible," he said, recalling the 1985 Adams Division final, when he scored the winning goal in Game 7 against the dreaded Canadiens at the old Forum and the Nordiques were mobbed by thousands of fans.
"That's when you saw what hockey meant to people here," Stastny said. "That year, we played Montreal three times in exhibition, eight times in the regular season and seven times in the playoffs.
"That's almost a season in itself."
In separate conferences now, the teams visit one another once per season.
Most remarkable about Saturday night's encounter was the lack of emotion and angst on the ice and in the 21,273 seats, where the only reminder of the old days was that it was a sellout.
The Avalanche still have 10 players left who were once Nordiques, while the Canadiens have eight from the old rivalry days, but there is no reason to despise each other any more.
"For us, the Avalanche are just another team now," said Canadiens defenceman Patrice Brisebois.
Quebecers still rehash some of the classic moments of the 1980s -- the Good Friday bloodbath, Alain Cote's disallowed goal, Dale Hunter's series-winning overtime goal at the Forum in 1982.
But it's all nostalgia, with no new episodes to feed the passion.
"It's sad when teams have to move," said Avalanche centre Peter Forsberg, a rookie in Quebec's last NHL season -- the lockout shortened 1994-95 campaign. "Don't get me wrong, we're having a great time in Denver, but I find it's sad that Canada is losing teams.
"I liked it in Quebec and I wanted to play there. It was just like my home town (Ornskoldsvik, Sweden) -- not too big, lots of snow and everybody liked hockey."
Today, the Canadiens are waiting to meet division rivals Ottawa or Toronto in a playoff series to get a new rivalry started.
Colorado has a blood feud going with the Detroit Red Wings, but only because they are two of the top Western Conference teams.
"Whenever we come here, we're always going to hear that we used to be the Quebec Nordiques, but that's good," Forsberg said. "There are people from Quebec who still follow the Avalanche and that's nice to see."
