At 8:48 on Friday morning, new Avalanche coach Jared Bednar, 44, stepped onto the ice at the Family Sports Center. He and goaltending coach Francois Allaire were alone, and Bednar took a bucket of pucks to one end and dumped them out. Behind him, Avalanche veterans started trickling onto the ice, and no detail is too small, no task too menial, for a new coach running an NHL practice for the first time. Within seven minutes of his entrance, Bednar had the first of the two training-camp groups gathered around him as he diagrammed on the dry-erase board.
It had been a long time coming.