The NHL's postseason bubble experiment last season was an overwhelming success, as the league carried out more than 33,000 coronavirus tests between its two Canadian hub cities, Toronto and Edmonton, over the course of nine weeks and didn't have a single test come back positive.
But those dreary days of playing hockey inside empty arenas have ended. With coronavirus vaccination rates rising and case numbers crashing across the nation, fans are gradually making their way back to arenas. And the timing couldn't be better for the Colorado Avalanche, which are in a prime position to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in 20 years.
Conor McGahey, the Avalanche's radio play-by-play voice, joined After Hours with Amy Lawrence on Tuesday to discuss fans' long-awaited return to arenas and the team's playoff atmosphere.
"It's been funny because [at the start of the season] we had to call games remotely, like we did in the bubble last year," McGahey said. "And we started out, road games I could be in the booth -- the same booth I was in tonight -- watch the game on a monitor, and you call the game and you're the only person in the building. And so your voice is echoing off of 18,000 seats... But the first game with fans back at Ball Arena was March 31, and the Avalanche in that game scored nine goals against the Arizona Coyotes. Joonas Donskoi had a hat trick. And so it was just a welcome back present for the fans. And now they have started to increase capacity, they're up to 7,750 there tonight for Ball Arena...
"There's nothing like sports, and I don't think there's anything like hockey live. And the atmosphere tonight, fans back in the building, they were just excited to see everybody. There's nothing like playoff hockey, and it was just like having 8,000 of your closest friends who also happened to be strangers at the same time in there... We've come a long way from empty rinks to buildings that sound like they're chock-full of people. And it's so loud, that you have to turn effects mics down, and that's always a good thing."
Colorado (82 points), which finished the abbreviated regular season as the Presidents' Trophy winner, currently owns a 1-0 series lead over the St. Louis Blues in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Game 2 will take place Wednesday night in Denver, with puck drop scheduled for 10:30 p.m. ET.
According to the William Hill Sportsbook, the Avalanche entered the playoffs with the second-best odds to win the Stanley Cup (+450).
The entire NHL conversation between McGahey and Lawrence can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow After Hours With Amy Lawrence on Twitter @ALawRadio and @AfterHoursCBS, and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.