Customer Reviews

Mission Accomplished - Colorado Avalanche 2001 Stanley Cup Champions [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was born and raised in a suburb of Massachusetts and have been a Boston Bruins fan my whole life. I became a Raymond Bourque fan when he played his first game in October 1979. I became a Colorado Avalanche fan when Bourque joined the team during the 1999-2000 season, even though I'd kept my eye on Sakic, Forsberg, and company since their Quebec Nordique days in the Bruin's division.

This 50 minute video presents far less footage of the 2000-2001 season than I expected. It spends five to seven minutes each on Patrick Roy's record-setting "goalie wins" game and Raymond's return to the Fleet Center in Boston. I was hoping to see more footage from the regular season, since winning the best overall record isn't a shabby achievement!

The 2001 All-Star game, hosted by Denver, offered an opportunity for the Avs to display their big guns playing opposite each other. Raymond's victory in the shooting accuracy contest is shown, along with a brilliant Joe Sakic All-Star Game goal. The blockbuster trade for outstanding defenseman Rob Blake is given its due as well.

The video presents an exciting summary of the Av's playoff march, including previously aired discussions of Chris Drury's former BU team-mate Travis Roy. The coverage of the seven games against Los Angeles and New Jersey is adequate. I missed the tension of actually watching each series.

If you followed the Avs closely this year, you've probably seen much of the seemingly "special footage" in this video. I'd already seen the exact same segments on Bourque's return to Boston and Drury's opinion of his friend Travis Roy. Nevertheless, this is a must-have video for Avs fans. I hope the NHL releases a video on Bourque's career, now that he's retired and awaiting entry to the Hall of Fame.

The other reviewers here are right about a couple of things: 1. There should have been more regular-season coverage. They won 52 games in the regular season, for crying out loud. Doing so allowed the Avalanche to get home-ice through the playoffs, which was sooo important. There should have been more about that. There were a lot of great, great games they could have picked from the season.
2. There was too much about the Travis Roy incident. I hate to seem insensitive, because Roy seemed like a terrific kid and what happened to him was just awful.
But did his case merit so much footage on a 60-minute, championship team video? The incident really had nothing to do with the Avalanche. Chris Drury was his friend, and that was about it. As much as I hate to say it, Roy's time on the video should have been cut down to allow more Avalanche regular-season highlights.
Stuff that is great about the video: Ray Bourque's return to Boston is fun to watch, especially when he's going through the drive-thru at Dunkin Donuts.
Patrick Roy's 447th victory in Washington is good.
Coverage of the Stanley Cup Finals is excellent, with in-depth highlights from every game. The post-game stuff is great. I think the reviewer who complained about the music that plays when Bourque lifts the Cup over his head is wrong. That was a magic moment on the tape that still gives me goose bumps when I see it.
All in all, the tape could have been better, but it's still a must-have for the serious Av-Aholic.

I found this a disappointing video. Bob Hartley is allowed to make plenty of comments, but Forsberg only got a tiny mention and they didn't cover any of his frustration once he was out of the playoffs. The Devils, The Blues, nor the Kings had a voice in this, either. It would've been interesting to hear some of their comments about playing against the Avs. This video also spends too much time on Roy breaking Sawchuk's win record. That didn't even happen during the playoffs. The whole Roy thing is taken directly from 'NHL All-Access' and it isn't essential to this video. The All-Star coverage isn't terribly necessary, either. Sure it was fun to look at how many Avalanche members were involved in the All-Stars but NHL Productions should've made that a post-video chapter, or included it on the 'All-Access' DVD. If these guys decide to revamp this thing and release it on DVD, they should definitely do the following: Make the All-Stars coverage and Travis Roy's segments 'bonus' chapters (and develop them). Take Roy's Sawchuk record-breaker coverage out. Use better highlights and FOCUS on the playoffs.

I bought this video and I don't feel it was worth it. Making a sports video shouldn't be too hard, after all most of the time a sports fan is happy just watching highlights. But this video just does an average job compiling highlights. They didn't necessarily show the goals from the best possible angle and they often showed them only once. For example, Tanguay's first goal of game 7 of the Finals... they pick just about the most incoherent angle of a goal that was spectacular looking yet difficult to make out where the puck entered the net. Actually, the coverage of game 7 in particular seemed rushed, as if they felt they were running short of available time. The highlights would have undoubtedly benefitted if they had more of Mike Haynes on the audio... they should used Haynes for all the calls if you ask me. Anyone who listens to Avs games on the radio in Colorado knows what I'm talking about. As it is, his calls only shows up maybe four or five times. Probably about 80% of the people who watch this video are gonna be Avs fans, and all Avs fans love Haynes' calls (maybe they all don't know it yet), so why not use his calls more? But those are nitpicks, I freely admit. A bigger problem is the way the video handles it's "human interest" stories. Obviously they have to include the Ray Bourque story and Patrick Roy's wins record, but it's basically repeating the ABC and ESPN promo material, which sort of reeked of desperation to attract more viewers. I don't know how many hockey fans are really sentimental softies at heart, but I prefer the skating, shooting, and hitting to this stuff. I certainly think they could have cut the Chris Drury/Travis Roy story in favor of better coverage of the Finals action. The thing that really made me feel like a chump for buying the video before seeing it was the Stanley Cup celebration footage... they used this terrible, sappy violin music over the shots of the players lifting the cup. Who needs THIS in their hockey videos?!?! It does have lots of cool highlights though... so Avs fans will enjoy it. Just depends on how much you expect to enjoy something you pay twenty bucks for. I expected more.

This was a real disappointment. The camera angles were terrible. Many of the best goals were impossible to see given the angles chosen.

They failed to talk about any of the important subtleties that made this an amazing playoff season - like the extraordinary play of the third and fourth line on Colorado after Forsberg went out from surgery. They overly focused on the big names and completely failed to represent the comprehensive team effort that enabled Colorado to win. Not to take anything away from the super stars, but that story is not the complete story.

There was no mention of Patrick's selflessness after winning the Conn Smythe for the third time, making him the only player in history to do it. At least they covered Sakic (the captain) bucking tradition and allowing Bourque to be the first to hoist the cup.

There was almost no post game coverage that hadn't already been aired on ESPN.

This video seems to have been edited and produced either: a) *by* people who knew nothing about hockey, or b) *for* people who knew nothing about hockey

All-in-all, if you need a keepsake, buy it. But you will likely be disappointed with the content.

When your favorite team is eliminated from any post-season play, it seems like forever until the next season starts. Hockey's "second season" starts in April and goes until June, and many Boston Bruins fans know what a long summer it usually can be. But following former Bruin #77 Raymond Bourque and the Colorado Avalanche in their quest for the Stanley Cup was nothing short of miraculous with all the "story book" finishes. Watch from the first drop of the puck in October to the tear-inducing final moments when Bourque hoists "the hardest earned trophy in all of sports." A must for ANY fan of the coolest game on the planet!

What an awesome video! Just too bad it wasn't available on DVD because it is definitely a keeper. Show all of the best wins for the Avs up to the Stanley Cup victory and shows warts and all! Great shots of Patrick Roy.

There is a great deal of segments that I have seen before. There could have been more highlights of the playoff series. I watched all of the Colorado games in the playoffs, and some of the tension (The Los Angles Series) was missing. All things concidered this is an enjoyable video.

The movie was very good...I will warn though - a lot of footage can be seen in "NHL All Access" and other than that the "behind the scenes" footage not also on "All Access" was not all that I thought it would be.

This video seems to focus a bit too much on sentimentality and Ray Bourque, where it could have used increased coverage of the regular season or even just more detailed coverage of each finals game, great goals (like all of Chris Drury's during the playoffs), great saves (Bourque doing a mid-air stop of the puck), and even obstacles (Sakic injury during the first part of the LA series).