It was great to see a reunion last night at the Chophouse of all of the Avalanche 96 Stanley Cup Championship team. There seems to be lot of those kinds of reunions these days. The Buffs 1990 Championship team celebrated just last weekend up in Boulder. I guess that’s the thing to do when there has been so little lately to celebrate sports wise here in Denver. But I digress…

I’d kind of lost my zeal for the NHL after Patrick Roy and Joe Sakic moved on. That along with the ridiculous level of gratuitous violence that continues to plague the sport left me cold. Let’s not even get me started on the Todd Bertuzzi incident against Avalanche player Steve Moore several years back. Bertuzzi should be in jail.

But I have to admit I’m starting to get excited about the Avs young nucleus of players that could make them a contender for the Cup for years to come. It’s always fun to watch things build into something good. We could use a lot more of that here in Colorado.

Those of you who have followed my cartoons through the years know how hard I’ve been about hammering the sport of soccer. Well, this last World Cup I finally understood what the rest of the world sees in the game. So I picked up a copy of FIFA soccer for my new Xbox 360 that I just splurged on. (Hey I figured after the last few years of trying to survive the aftermath of the Rocky Mountain News going under and that I’m working some 60 hours a week doing animation and cartoons for numerous clients, I thought deserved an Xbox. Of course finding the time to actually play it is a whole different matter altogether). Anyway, the FIFA game got me into taping some English Premier Soccer games, which led me into trying to pick a team to follow, which then led me to start reading a book called “Bloody Confused” about the why the British are so crazy about their soccer. It’s all interesting, It really is. Honest. All of this comes at a time when I really have so little time to spend just relaxing, which is, of course, the time you need to relax the most. Anyways, the moral of the story is, you can teach an old dog new tricks. Even if they involve a Soccer ball.