Morning Flurries: Pioneers looking to repeat as Frozen Four begins

Your daily dose of Colorado Avalanche news and links.

It’s a big week for the Denver Pioneers as they take on Western Michigan on Thursday afternoon in the opening game of the Frozen Four at 3:00 p.m. MT televised on ESPN2. If they advance, the championship game will be on Saturday, April 12th.

Relive the Pioneers’ historic win over Boston College, which was the first time a championship title rematch the following year was taken by the previous champion.

Speaking of college hockey, one of Colorado’s newest prospects Hank Kempf signed a two-year AHL deal with the Colorado Eagles over the weekend. The senior left shot defenseman participated in the opening rounds of the NCAA tournament Cornell got knocked out in the second round and thus Kempf was free to begin is pro career. He has joined the Eagles to finish out the year but hasn’t played yet.

Another new face in Loveland is the newly signed Taylor Makar, who made his highly anticipated pro debut on Saturday night. While he didn’t contribute any points in the 3-1 win over San Jose, the winger got to play on a line with Ivan Ivan and Jean-Luc Foudy while picking up some valuable experience.

And finally, to round out the Alex Ovechkin celebrations, the 28 goaltenders who never gave up a goal to him received commemorative beer cans including our very own Colorado Avalanche netminder Trent Miner who stopped the one Ovi shot he faced.