Avalanche to get new dressing room, is a practice facility in the works?

DENVER—Stanley Kroenke will spare a few shekels for his Stanley Cup-winning hockey team, constructing a new locker room inside their stadium.

Newly appointed President of Hockey Operations Joe Sakic shared the dressing room du jour at a press conference on Monday announcing his and Chris MacFarland’s promotions. Sakic gave up his title as General Manager as MacFarland took over the day-to-day. This comes days after Sakic was named the best GM in the league.

MacFarland’s promotion comes as Kroenke Sports & Entertainment tries to keep the Avs together on the ice and in their front office. Unlike the salary cap-limited roster decisions, keeping the brass in place all comes down to ownership commitment. KSE has started this summer doing what they can to keep the Avalanche’s higher-ups together. This contrasts with a similar decision KSE had to make about the Denver Nuggets, letting Tim Connelly walk.

What the Avalanche and Nuggets share is a home at Ball Arena, but each are without a practice home and dedicated facilities. However, that soon could change; Josh Kroenke recently mentioned that the sister teams are looking at upgrades. We found out more about this from Sakic on Monday.

“Those are the things that we are working on now with ownership, and I know they do want to get to a good enough practice facility for the Nuggets and us, and that will happen down the line,” Sakic said. “We’re going to have a brand new dressing room next year, so it’s going to be different and amazing and the players can be proud of it.”

The Avs currently practice in a youth/beer league rink in Centennial, while the Nuggets work out in a high school-style gym attached to the LoDo Arena.

The issue of practice facilities has turned into one of the biggest bugaboos for Denver sports fans. The Cup champs getting a refresh to their older changing rooms is a nice start.

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