Welcome To The Mile High Hockey Wiki Reference Site

Mile High Hockey is a blog and fan community dedicated to the Colorado Avalanche hockey club of the National Hockey League. Mile High Hockey is the second-oldest hockey blog in the SB Nation network.

Origin of Mile High Hockey

MHH, or "Muh", as it is known by its members, was created in July, 2007. The editor-in-chief is a man known as Joe Lord Stanley, or just Joe for short. Joe began blogging about the Avalanche and the NHL with a site called Dear Lord Stanley, which still exists, but now focuses on the league as a whole rather than any one team. After spending several months writing irreverent titles to sarcasm-filled posts about the Avalanche over at DLS, Joe felt he needed a more serious outlet to stalk discuss his favorite team. Soon after contacting SB Nation, MHH was born, and with it a whole new online community for fans of Colorado.

Along for the ride is the statistics-obsessed Draft Dodger and goaltending expert Mike. DD began his Avalanche-stalking with a blog called In The Cheap Seats, which he maintains to this day, while Mike started writing for now-defunct group blog Bleu, Blanc et Rouge as the Avalanche representative. Draft Dodger contributes his number-crunching skills to give Mile High Hockey an illusion of authority, while Mike adds his own unique perspectives on netminders and being an occasionally bored hockey fan.

As for this Wiki site, Joe felt a detailed guide to both the Avalanche and Mile High Hockey would help blog visitors get better acquainted with the diverse community of Colorado fans on the Internet. The inspiration for the format and style of the Wiki comes from fellow SB Nation blog Red Reporter, who set up their own awesome Wiki page here. Thanks, Red.

Why Mile High Hockey Is Special

Mile High Hockey, like all SB Nation blogs, is powered by Scoop, a web technology that gives it a community feel. DailyKos, for example, owes its great success and popularity to the user-friendly features of Scoop. It allows readers to post their own mini-blogs (called "diaries") within the domain of a larger parent blog. When posting a diary entry, you can include images, decorative text, text links and other bells and whistles to make things look better. Just follow the instructions below if you're unfamiliar with how things work:

How to add images to your diary posts

Use the standard <img> html tag. Example: <img src="http://www.imageURL.jpg"> DO NOT post images larger than 300 pixels in width due to site formatting constraints. Images in violation of this rule will be deleted.

How to add links

The most basic method of adding a link is to just type out the URL, including the http://. The URL will automatically turn into a link but won't be very aesthetically pleasing. To embed a link as text, you can use the common <a> html tag.
Example: <a href="http://www.linkURL.com">Linky Linky.</a> This will give you linked text like: Linky Linky. An even easier method is to use the built-in tool provided by Scoop. Just highlight the word or words you want to use as the link text, press the "link" button at the bottom of the text editing box and enter the URL of your link.

Other allowed HTML tags

Diary entries can handle '''bold''', ''italics'', blockquotes, item lists, code (for tables), and DIVs. Examples:

bold - <strong>TEXT</strong> (you can also surround a single word by asterisks(*) to get the same effect)

italics - <em>TEXT</em>

blockquotes - an easy way to highlight (with an indented, colored box) quoted text. Simply put the quoted text inside of two blockquote tags like so: <blockquote>TEXT</blockquote>. Or you can highlight the quoted text and press the "blockquote" button at the bottom of the text editing box if you're too lazy to type two extra words.

bulleted lists - start each line with an asterisk (*) followed by a space. Each line that you start that way will be bulleted.

numbered lists - tart each line with a number and then period and a space.

code - using the code tag is an easy method of posting tabular data on the site. If you have data set up in a table with fixed-width columns just paste the data between two code tags and it will appear properly structured on the site: <code>PRE-FORMATTED TABLE</code>

DIVs - DIVS are HTML tags that will allow you to format data to your liking. It is more advanced than basic HTML tags and a good reference can be found at the W3C specification. Not recommended for beginners, but not difficult to learn.

Avalanche Reference

Obviously, MHH members who know what they're talking about get more respect than those who don't. In an effort to help everyone "get it", Mile High Hockey submits the following useful references:

• The Colorado Avalanche has its own website. It is useful. It is here.
• For even more fun, seek out the incomparable Avalanche Database.
• The National Hockey League's official site is also filled with handy hockey stats, photos and video files.
• The Avalanche pages at ESPN, TSN, SI and Yahoo! are handy.
• For a good team history lesson, check out the Avalanche Wikipedia page.

Avalanche Media Sources

There exists in this world a strange, mystical realm called "journalism," in which trained professionals study contemporary subjects, research their topics thoroughly, conduct personal interviews, check their facts to ensure accuracy and make formal retractions when they're wrong. Another realm called "broadcasting" also exists, and in this realm charismatic people with good voices describe events like hockey games to the larger listening and/or watching public. Obviously, as an internet fan blog, Mile High Hockey does not pretend to be a part of either realm. But we rely on journalists and broadcasters for most of the information we discuss, so we do value them (at least a little bit). The principal broadcast and journalism outlets for Avalanche information are Altitude Sports, the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News.

• Mike Haynes, Altitude Sports (Radio/TV).
• Norm Jones, Altitude Sports (Radio).
• Peter McNabb, Altitude Sports (TV).
• Kyle Keefe, Altitude Sports (TV).
• Adrian Dater, Denver Post beat writer (Newspaper), blogs here.
• Terry Frei, Denver Post columnist (Newspaper), also blogs here.
• Rick Sadowski, Rocky Mountain News beat writer (Newspaper).
• Sandy Clough, host of AM 950 The Fan morning radio show The Sports Guys

Jargon and Running Themes

After a while, any community in real life or on the Internet develops its own secret language comprised of vague but understood references to various topics of interest, strange or humorous nicknames and even nonsense words just made up for laughs. Below is a list of common themes and terms that pop up among Avalanche fans in general and in Mile High Hockey diaries and comments specifically (complete with a link to where they first appeared, if applicable).

Avalanche Team Related:

• Mission 16W - The codename of the Avs' 2001 post-season run, named after the number of victories it takes to win the Stanley Cup. Ray Bourque won his very first Cup after 22 seasons in the NHL as a member of the Avalanche that year.

• The Streak -The final 19 games of the 2006-07 regular season, in which the Avalanche made a furious (but ultimately futile) run for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference with a record of 15-2-2.

• Power Play Kittens -On February 27th, 2008, during the thread for an Avalanche game against the Canucks, it was decided that every time the Avalanche fail to score on the power play, Coach Joel Quenneville kills a kitten. A graphical tally of kittens killed (failed power plays) is kept for all game recaps since then.

Avalanche Player Related:

• Super Joe - Avalanche captain Joe Sakic. Joe Sakic is the greatest captain currently playing in the NHL, and arguably the history of hockey. Some contend that maybe long-time Dead Wings' captain Steve Yzerman was better, but the last time Yzerman scored 100 points or more (1992-93), he was 28. Sakic scored 100 points at age 37. Sakic is also known as "Quoteless Joe" because of his inability to say anything interesting when speaking to the press.

• Foppa - A common Swedish hypocoristic for anyone named Forsberg, now the default pet name for Peter among Avs fans. After several seasons spent faking it with the Flyers and the Predators, Peter Forsberg returned to the Avalanche organization just prior to the trade deadline in early March, 2008. And there was much rejoicing.

• TBL - Total Brain Liquification, which is what Avalanche fans would suffer if Peter Forsberg ever signed with the Dead Wings. Liquificiation, by the way, is not a real word.

• Son Of Stastny - Avalanche center Paul Statsny, the talented son of NHL Hall of Famer and former Quebec Nordiques captain Peter Stastny.

• Captain Canada - Avalanche left winger Ryan Smyth, who earned the nickname from the Canadian press and public due to his constant presence on the Canadian national hockey team.

• Pimp Cane -A nickname for amazingly resurgent goaltender Jose Theodore, inspired by this ridiculous photo that appeared on the Rocky Mountain News website as part of a promotion for Denver sports teams. "Pimp Cane" also suggests that Theo's rebirth as a top starting goalie makes him a pimp, which is at least somewhat true, considering his romantic history.

Blog and Internet Related

• Tommy The Enforcer - A blog and message board commenter known only as "Thomas", The Enforcer frequents Red Wings blogs and boards with the sole purpose of creating flame wars. Thomas was briefly a member of Mile High Hockey, but his unwavering brilliance and unrivaled wit were too much for the site and he was forced to move on to greener pastures. He also fits the label of "BOF".

• BOF - Blender of Feces. Anything and everyone that regularly stirs up shit on the Internet or elsewhere.

Red Wings Related:

• Dead Wings - The Detroit Red Wings. Also known as "Chicken Wings," "Beige Wings," or "Those Fuckers." The actual rivalry that dominated the NHL during the mid- to late-1990s is now over, but Avalanche fans will always hate the Red Wings, and vice versa.

• EmptyTown - A play on the ridiculous "Hockeytown" nickname Detroit gave itself during the 1990s, the name EmptyTown refers to the fact that since 1950, the population of the city has declined by one million people, 200,000 since 1990.

• The Brawl In EmptyTown - Refers to the gang fight that broke out in Detroit on March 26th, 1997.

Flames Related:

• Flame-Outs -The Calgary Flames, so-called for their half-hearted, first round playoff exits, their sub-par performance against the Avalanche during the regular season, and my unwillingness to resort to the easy homophobia of "Flamers." The Flames would be an excellent team to replace the Red Wings as the Avs' arch nemesis if the Avs didn't beat them all the time.

• Phadouche -A more appropriate name for Flames defenseman/coward Dion Phaneuf, who runs his mouth and gives out cheap, dirty hits, but is afraid to fight anyone on the Avalanche team since Ian Laperriere totally cleaned his clock late in the 2006-07 season.

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