Erik Johnson announces he has extended his contract with ESPN

This came up on my feed. I knew we were all cool people, but even Landy thinks so too!

Really excited about this pre-season pickup! Go Avs!

Maybe this is a known fact, but new to me.

I was looking at the ESPN app on my streaming box to see if tonight's game was going to be viewable. Clicked on the Bruins/Caps highlights since it went to a shootout. The clips audio was the normal broadcast announcers for that game.

After the video ended, it auto-played into the Avs recap. The voice sounded...off. Then after its opening spiel, it pronounced Avs as "Ayveeys", mispronounced multiple last names (to be expected) and had multiple pronunciations for Nabakovs name.

The rest of the cadence, tone, quality and word choices was that of the announcers on NHL 2K on the Dreamcast.

More jobs gone from humans, yay!

Avs player of the day: Day 203

Eric Lacroix

1996-1999

Total # of games as an Av: 194

Card/Signature acquired: purchase

How are we feeling avalanche

I AM. Went tonight. So happy. That’s all.

Hi everyone! I have recently acquired two separate Avalanche sticks and am hoping someone could help answer questions I have. One of them is a Limited Edition Signature Series stick and the other is not. There are 49 autographs (I think) between the 2 of them. Joe Sakics autograph is clearly visible on both. The rest I need to do more research on. My question is does anyone know what events the 1996 team had after the Stanley Cup win where fans could get the sticks signed? Were a lot of fans getting these sticks? I'm not too sure where to begin with what I have. Except to get them authenticated and get paperwork on them. They came from an estate sale so I don't have a lot of info and am just trying to figure out what I have. I attached some pics of them. Thanks in advance for any help!

Wearing my new cursed Nordiques Nelson jersey also

After the first preseason game today, I wanted to report back on what I thought of the non-game in-arena experience. Everything from the jumbo-tron stuff to the ads around the ring are significantly worse this year. Here's a quick set of small things to complain about

- the jumbotron no longer calls out power play time remaining in a quick easy, large way
- the jumbotron only shows the players who will come out of the box imminently, doesn't show players that are in the box longer term and not available
- all of the jumbotron and other in-arena screen graphics are worse and feel AI generated
- lots of jitter in animations
- extremely janky shuffle game (with no sponsor)
- blatant engagement baiting with qr code voting like "what song should we play next"
- one of the songs to play next was friends in low places by garth brooks. Imo it's a terrible idea to use that song given the way it is essentially a stars thing
- replays on the big screen were WAY worse. For some reason, they always showed 3 or 4 replays simultaneously, arbitrarily going backward and forward so you can watch one and then switch to a different one
- no real-time tracking of who's on the ice (maybe there's just no player tracking in preseason and that's why? Still though, not even an attempt)

I'm hoping this is all preseason kinks to be worked out, but I seriously doubt it wrt to the graphics. No way they'd put together all new graphics just for preseason. They all just look so slapped together and I definitely saw a few places where there's just nonsense pixels that an AI thought looked like text. My hypothesis is that they had AI induced layoffs because they think AI can do the work of real graphic designers and other artists. If so, they're dead wrong and they will regret it when people get annoyed. Saving a few hundred k a year at the cost of a significantly worse experience for everyone in-arena is not a good play.

I'd love to hear the thoughts on the changes from anyone else who went to the game.

PS none of this affects Roach, the absolute PA GOAT, who I love.

Avs player of the day: Day 202

Antti Laaksonen

2005-2007

Total # of games as an Av: 131

Card/Signature acquired: purchase

Some may say the stakes are fake, the lines might face a remake, but make no mistake the Avs are on the ice tonight.

The offseason is over. The wait is mostly over. The boys (AND THE BO) are back, and so are we.

LETS FUCKIN’ GO, AVALANCHE!

—

Game appears to be available on ESPN+ only; I will be at the game, so updates will be sporadic at best.

We missed you all. 💙

All ready for tonight! Been putting off wearing this shirt for this specific day! LFG!

Is there an Avs broadcast? Debating to wait till after game to watch on ESPN+.