Big Dawg Nation Presence At Cutthroats Opener

On Friday night, October 19th, the brand new Denver Cutthroats hockey team played their inaugural game against the Missouri Mavericks at the Denver Coliseum. And they opened in fine style, winning a very exciting game 4-3 in overtime. Jamie MacQueen sent the Fish fans home happy, wristing a beauty through Mavericks goalie Mike Clemente early in overtime for the deciding goal.

Over 5000 fans came to the first hockey game played at the Coliseum since 1989, including almost 400 representing Dawg Nation. The Cutthroats made a special deal with The Nation, letting us sell tickets for $10, and keeping two dollars for our charity. They originally allotted 250 tickets, thinking that would be plenty to take care of our organization.

Uh...not so much. The Fish were just the latest to be surprised by the juggernaut that is Dawg Nation. Just this year, we brought 30 teams to our hockey tournament, we packed the Comedy works on a Wednesday night, and we set a record for the number of players to play a golf tournament at the Red Rocks Country Club (including a record bar tab, by the way). No, 250 seats were not nearly enough.

This fact was not lost on Cutthroats owner John Hayes, who personally called Dawg Nation president Marty Richardson to express his appreciation, and tell him how impressed he was with our organization. John would understand even more what we're all about at the 14 minute mark of the second period Friday night.

During a time out, Dawg Nation was able to present its latest check to a deserving recipient. Kim McLeod has been a coach in Arvada Hockey for a long time, but has been battling cancer for the past several years. But even as he wages the good fight, he has been able to find time to donate his services for Dawg Nation, including spending a bunch of hours volunteering at the Dawg Bowl hockey tourney.

Even with insurance, cancer treatment still puts a huge out of pocket expense on a patient. Knowing that, the board members of the Dawg Nation Foundation decided to try to help Kim and the McLeod family, proudly awarding this good man with a grant of $10,000.


    From left to right: Eddie Cribbs, Marty Richardson, Dennis Heaton, Kim McLeod, Mike Pijanowski, Cutthroats owner John Hayes, Al Sterner, and Greg Clinard

We couldn't have found a better person to help, and the entire Dawg Nation organization wishes nothing but the best for Kim in the future.

Building on our opening night success, we will continue to partner with the Denver Cutthroats throughout the 2012-2013 season, holding events on a monthly basis. The next Dawg Nation night will be on November 17th, when the Fish take on the Fort Worth Brahmas. $10 tickets are available on our website (or just plug in https://oss.ticketmaster.com/html/group_corp_start.htmI?l=EN&team=cutthroats&owner=1493361&group=95&err=&event=&customerID, password is "dawg"), and be sure to bring your skates to the game! Right after the final buzzer, fans are invited to come down and skate with the Cutthroat players, who will be available for pictures.

$10 for a professional hockey game, free parking, and a skate with the players? You'll never get a better deal! So let's see if we can break that 500 ticket barrier, and represent Dawg Nation on November 17th!