{"id":597915,"date":"2026-06-13T12:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T12:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/597915\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T12:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T12:18:15","slug":"avalanche-getting-new-practice-facility-well-believe-it-when-we-see-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/597915\/","title":{"rendered":"Avalanche getting new practice facility? We’ll believe it when we see it."},"content":{"rendered":"

Josh Kroenke has been promising Avalanche fans a pony for Christmas since 2017.<\/a> So you\u2019ll forgive them for rolling their eyes, collectively, whenever they hear about a new practice facility from the horse\u2019s mouth.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we\u2019re in talks with a couple of different groups. A project that big, we just got to make sure we do it right, because we don\u2019t want to have to redo anything down the road. But they are fun conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was Josh, on building new facilities.<\/p>\n

In 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the land around the arena, and over at Elitch Gardens. We\u2019re part of a master plan there to develop that out, and the first phase of that will include, most likely, an Avalanche and Nuggets facility. \u2026 But there\u2019s a lot that goes into that. We\u2019re working as fast as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was also Josh, also on building new facilities.<\/p>\n

In 2022.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019ll forgive the army of cynics up in the Grading The Week offices for chuckling and shaking their heads when Josh, when asked about one of the best franchises in hockey still practicing in a local rec center with a giant arcade on the ground floor, said this to the cameras:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s one final hurdle that we\u2019re in and we hope to have some information relatively soon. But again, we\u2019re dealing with the city, and we\u2019re working on pedestrian access over Speer, in and around that. I don\u2019t have an exact time frame, but we\u2019re very close.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was this past Thursday. Also Josh. Also on new facilities.<\/p>\n

In 2026.<\/p>\n

Josh Kroenke\u2019s practice facility promises \u2014 C<\/p>\n

The kindest thing we\u2019ll say about KSE and some overdue buildings for the Avs and Nuggets to call home \u2014 or, heck, even one facility for the pair of them \u2014 is this:<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll believe it when we see it.<\/p>\n

It never ceases to amaze the basketball guys and gals on the GTW crew who\u2019ve worked in other markets how a franchise with one of the 10 best centers to ever play the game (Nikola Jokic) basically shoots, trains, and lifts weights in this teeny-tiny space just above floor level at Ball Arena. We\u2019ve seen church basements with larger, dedicated basketball and CYO spaces and better facilities than the Nuggets\u2019.<\/p>\n

And yet the basketball side of Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, or KSE, is palatial compared to its NHL counterparts down the road.<\/p>\n

The Avalanche have won three Stanley Cups since 1996. That\u2019s tied for the second-most in the NHL (Detroit \u2014 boo, hiss \u2014 has four) over the last 30 years.<\/p>\n

And yet the directions for getting to the Avs\u2019 locker room at the South Suburban Family Sports Center sound like something lifted from the movie \u201cThis Is Spinal Tap:\u201d Go past the climbing wall in the lobby, veer left at the arcade and go up the steps. Yet they\u2019ve been there since 1998. It feels like 1998. Actually, the whole thing feels incredibly bush league.<\/p>\n

Ex-Nuggets voices staying classy while being stiffed by KSE \u00a0\u2014 A<\/p>\n

We say this a lot in the GTW offices, but Scott Hastings is a better man than us.<\/a> At least in front of a microphone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe young Scott Hastings probably would\u2019ve thrown a fit, been upset, cussed people out, gone on the radio today and said, \u2018You Em-effers,’\u201d Hastings, the now-ex TV analyst for the Nuggets, said during his mid-day radio show on 92.5-FM earlier this week. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t do anybody (any) good. It\u2019s not helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, we wouldn\u2019t have blamed him for dropping a few expletives into the conversation. The Kroenkes did all their broadcast crews dirty, but especially those on the TV side, by squabbling with the even more stubborn jerks at Comcast in recent years. As a result, two of KSE\u2019s best teams, the \u201921-22 Avalanche and \u201922-23 Nuggets, won championships in the NHL and NBA, respectively, while local broadcasts of their games were unavailable on many television sets in their home market.<\/p>\n

Chris Marlowe deserved better. Hastings deserved better. So did Post alum Chris Dempsey, who, as anyone who\u2019s met him will tell you, is an even better dude than he is a reporter and analyst. And that\u2019s saying something.<\/p>\n

Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver\u2019s teams.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Kroenke has been promising Avalanche fans a pony for Christmas since 2017. So you\u2019ll forgive them for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[66464,193,1650,1466,568,192,144,5277,5207,573,66465,13286,5,8473,1180,1262,3977,555,4,2464,557,4458,66466,1653,43,350],"class_list":["post-597915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-avalanche","tag-arcade","tag-avalanche","tag-avalanche-takes","tag-ball-arena","tag-basketball","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-coloradoavalanche","tag-comcast","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-elitch-gardens","tag-grading-the-week","tag-hockey","tag-josh-kroenke","tag-latest-headlines","tag-more-avalanche-news","tag-more-nuggets-news","tag-nba","tag-nhl","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-nuggets","tag-nuggets-takes","tag-scott-hastings","tag-sean-keeler","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116742763551283708","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}