I have been a fan of the Avs since they were the Nordiques. Although I didn't know a damn thing about the team at first, I was impressed by their very cool name.

Membership for life followed soon after and even when they lost their cool name and moved to Denver, that was still cool. "Mork and Mindy" were in Boulder, Colorado and that was the funniest show ever.

It's the playoffs 1996 and I remember buying extra long playing videotapes so that I could record the whole game overnight. It was shown on Channel 5, which was quite a new channel, but it was very spotty with reception, so sometimes it was hard to tell who was who, but the commentary was amazing. So exciting.

So, my team lifted the Stanley Cup and all was great in the world.

Fast forward to 2013 (no hover cars or death lasers yet, sadly) and here we sit.

In a 2011 interview with Mark Kizla, the Avs "owner" says this:

"I don't want to say it so bluntly that it offends the fans. But they got spoiled the first few years the Avalanche were in town," Kroenke told me. "We won two Stanley Cups during the first five or six years we were here in Denver.

Reading MHH, it appears that we are expecting very much more from the Avs than we are getting.

Is it fair to say that we feel "entitled" by our early successes and that set up an unreasonable expectation of success? That this is why many of us feel pissed off and bitter at the product that's put on the ice?

Or, should we accept the shift into mediocrity because since 2008, that is where the franchise has settled and that really is all we should expect?

Below is a quote from The Guardian newspaper:

Stan Kroenke has defended his running of ******** in the face of heated opposition by fans at Thursday's AGM, where questions were raised about whether the club was being run more for profit than sporting gains

Which club is he talking about? Well, it's Arsenal FC, but that really could be written about the Avs.

What do you say, MHH'ers?