Inside the Avalanche Locker Room: Jubilation in Edmonton

EDMONTON, Alberta – My God, it was cold in Edmonton these last two days. I mean, the kind of cold where you start to wonder if you’re actually going to make it, just walking a couple blocks or so. Your face freezes fast, if you don’t have gloves (like I didn’t for a while), your hands start to turn to pieces of immobilized, Siberian deadwood.

Well, at least we’re off to warmer climes of…wait, we’re going to Winnipeg next. If I look like Jack Nicholson in the final scene of “The Shining”, you’ll know why.

Anyway, the tape recorders were still working here, and I present to you some uncut audio of the last couple days from the visitors room at Rogers Place. Wow, what a change from the old Rexall Place (nee, the former Northlands Coliseum). The Oilers have a state-of-the-art facility now, but I wonder if they lost a bit of their soul in the process. The whole place just seemed a bit much for what is mostly a pretty blue-collar working city. I got the sense that people are still figuring out how to act in that place. It’s like going from your favorite corner bar to some fancy schmanz kind of place where you’ve got to know the correct salad fork or something.

Anyway, here’s some of the audio from the days, staring off with an interesting little conversation with A.J. Greer, on what it’s like to be a kid just trying to stick in the NHL.

Next up, a couple minutes with Blake Comeau, who scored the 5,000th goal in Avs franchise history tonight.

Next up, a brief chat with J.T. Compher, who scored the winner in OT:

And finally, another interesting little chat with Nikita Zadorov, who had a monster game for the Avs: