It wasn’t your typical sports bar two-fer, but on Thursday night, Zach McBride stood at the perfect vantage point to watch, simultaneously, the Colorado Avalanche play and, through a window overlooking the ice rink just beyond Bender’s Bar & Grill in Westminster, his buddy’s adult rec-league team skate joyously into the playoffs.
For the Avs, it marked the first time since 2014 that they carried a bandwagon of hardcore fans and happy hangers-on into the postseason. And that year, which ended with the thud of a first-round collapse against Minnesota, marked the only time in a string of seven mostly miserable seasons when the team carried the excitement well into spring.