This is a Stanley Cup Playoffs commercial from the NHL’s 1996 campaign, and true to form the League used a song from 12 years ago to promote it. But what a commercial! Pavel Bure! Jim Belushi!

The 1996 Avalanche were much like the 2010 Avalanche in that they were a team on the rise following a series of failures. Joe Sakic had established himself as an elite NHL player, and young ...

It was a Stanley Cup Finals between a team in a new city and a team known for throwing rats on the ice. Three years before the 1996 NHL Finals, the Colorado Avalanche were still the Quebec ...

But as a student at the University of Michigan, which had just won the 1996 NCAA championship, I was into college hockey and the NHL. The inaugural World Cup of Hockey didn't excite me at first.

It was Game 3 of the inaugural World Cup of Hockey in 1996 and there was Amonte skating and scraping as he normally did for Team USA against favored Team Canada. The Americans were trailing by a ...

But by the mid-90s, matters were a touch different. Americans were asserting themselves in the NHL as star players, not mere glue guys. Studs, not plug-and-place yeomen.