Bourque was one of the stupidest and most questionable jersey retirements ever (from the Avalanche, not from the Bruins), but I'm way over that.
If we were mature enough to root for the Kings in the 2014 finals, just two years after we lost to them, I think we can get over Colorado 21 years later. Now, if it weren't the Rangers, Devils fans probably wouldn't have been rooting for the Kings in the 2014 SCF, but my point still stands.
Yeah, the Bourque number retirement was really dumb, but I don't have any kind of disliking for them anymore.
They were actually kind of my second favorite team in the late 90's, only because of Claude Lemieux. When Claude Lemieux left, I didn't really root for them anymore and of course it was here that he came back to. I then adopted the Sharks as my second favorite team in 99-00, who I've always been a much bigger fan of than I ever was of Colorado.
I picked Colorado because Claude Lemieux was there and we missed the playoffs in 96, so that was my bandwagon team and I would root for them in the playoffs the next 4 years when we were out. They luckily won the cup the year after us and that was their first year in Colorado. My step brother is from Denver and I went to visit back in 96 and got to see the Devils play the Avalanche (1-0 win where Steve Thomas scored the only goal with about a minute left in regulation) at the old arena a few years before the Pepsi/Ball Arena/whatever was built. That was their first year in Denver and maybe a month after Patrick Roy was traded there.
I loved watching Roy's meltdown in the last 2 games of the 02 WCF, when they were up 3 games to 2 and looked like they were going back to the SCF, but they got Hasek'd in the last two games of the series. Roy had the AWFUL ''Look what I got'' in game 6 where he dropped the puck out of his glove and it was a Red Wings goal after he was showing off. And then he got destroyed in game 7.
It also felt good to see that, it also felt a little good to see them lose to Minnesota in 2003, after having what I think was a 3-1 lead in that series in the first round. After that they didn't really have much success in the playoffs for a VERRRYYYYYYY long time. And Roy retired after that series.
Their best non-goalie player and captain from that team is now their GM (and holy shit he looks so f***in old and decrepit already in his early 50's), but other than that, there's not too many people left that had anything to do with 2001 still left there.
Patrick Roy - I don't know where the hell he is since his brief head coaching stint there not too many years ago. He's probably still a juniors coach in Quebec
Bourque - Probably went back to wherever the hell he was before his very brief stay there
Forsberg - Probably somewhere over in Sweden. He didn't play a game that finals and he may even been out that entire playoffs. I forget?
Hejduk - Probably somewhere over in the Czech
Rob Blake - Current GM for the Kings
Chris Drury - Current GM for the Rags lol
Adam Foote - Apparently he does work there in some kind of role. They were interviewing him on TNT during one of the games in the WCF. His son plays for Tampa, for what it's worth.
