From Adrian…
As a guy who has covered the Colorado Avalanche from their inception in Denver, in 1995, I have a lot of institutional knowledge of the team, but am still right up on the latest comings and goings of the defending Stanley Cup champions. My mission hasn’t changed since the first day I covered the team in 1995 until now: Give the reader the best Avs content they can find, work hard to develop good sources and tell compelling stories to which you can relate.
This photo here is from the day I broke the news of the team that would eventually move from Quebec to Denver and become the Colorado Avalanche.
I still consider myself a news breaker (that will always be ingrained in me, as someone who has been on the Avs “beat” with other competitors), but I was starting to feel too much like a hamster on a wheel at other previous places. I think my true writing ability was starting to suffer the consequences of focusing too much on minutiae that can be found almost anyplace else. My value to you, I believe, will come in the form of better analysis on the team and better storytelling overall. As a subscriber, every post I do will come to your inbox, and will always be right here on the app/desktop site too.
Why subscribe?
There are no ads or sponsored content on my site, so not only is it a much “cleaner” experience for you, the reader, but your subscriber support allows me to pursue my passion of telling better, deeper, more thoughtful pieces. I want this to be a community, not a place where you feel like just another face in the crowd, another “click.”
As a subscriber, you can expect regular postings on the Avalanche. I like to work hard, so this will not be a passive site where I go days without a post. A lot of things happen every day with a pro sports team, so I’ll be up on the news. But I won’t put up as much clutter, the kind that permeates so many sites now, places that only care about their click counts.
As a paid subscriber, you can also count on:
Live chats during every Avalanche game. I’ve already done a couple of them, and it’s been a place where dozens of fans can communicate on the game with each other, along with myself.
Opportunities to communicate directly with me, through reader comments and Q&A sessions.
Surprise Avalanche “Treasure Hunts”, where I get some cool Avalanche memorabilia and hide them somewhere in the Denver area, then leave clues to where they can be found.
A weekly podcast, “Can’t Hear What Jeremy Says”, going over the Avs’ latest comings and goings.
Occasional postgame video breakdowns of the game, with myself and Brennan Vogt.
I am working for “you” now, not some corporate bureaucracy.
So, please, spread the word if you like what you see and read.
About Adrian Dater
My first paid story as a sports writer was in the summer of 1990, for the Concord Monitor newspaper in New Hampshire. I was hooked the second I saw my name in print in that day’s paper. I can never adequately describe how I felt at that moment, seeing my name in bold print, as the story’s author.
Don’t ask me how it happened, but from there I went on to a long career in Denver for The Denver Post. I had no job, no contacts, no car and almost no money. But I had visited Colorado later in 1990 and when they laid me off in the spring of 1991, I decided to move to Denver on a wing and a prayer. I got hired as a high-school score taker in the winter of 1991 (thank you, Neil Devlin) and from there parlayed that into what became a full-time staff writer job covering the Avalanche, in 1995 (that story, which I broke as a “stringer”, had a lot to do with it).
I have also worked at Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, The Hockey News, The Sporting News, BSN Denver and Colorado Hockey Now, and freelanced for dozens of other publications. I am grateful to every one of those entities and will always want everyone to succeed in this very tough business. I am the author of seven books, including the bestselling “Blood Feud: Detroit Red Wings v. Colorado Avalanche, The Inside Story of Pro Sports’ Nastiest and Best Rivalry of its Era.”
I live in Thornton, CO., with my wife, Heidi, and son, Thomas.
