Written by Jibblescribbits | 28 August 2008

As if you couldn't tell, I'm extremely happy that Sakic is back for another season. But the excitement seems to have died off pretty quickly for me, In fact I couldn't even get worked up enough to do a proper analysis on how this team's lineup is 100x better than it was just 2 days ago. (Seriously I should be excited for the fact alone that I never have to hear Tyler Arnason: 2nd line center). Joe Sakic is Denver sports right now, and his announcement should have generated Justin Timberlake making a guest appearence at a sweet 16 party levels of excitment, but the fact of the matter is I'm incredibly happy, but not excited.

An it's all Joe's fault. I don't think anyone really believed he was done. And as this drug on throughout the summer I think it was clear to everyone that he was coming back for one more season, and we were all just letting him come to terms with it on his own. After seeing what the Avs did in free agency, seeing how he stayed in shape and kept the camaraderie with his teammates, and knowing he's a class act that wouldn't string a franchise along just to show them the door at the last second, I don't think any Avs observer felt as though we'd seen the last of Sakic.

So the announcement yesterday caught very few people off-guard. Sure the timing was a surprise, but the actual content of the announcement was not shocking at all. No one heard it yesterday, mainly because there's a whole bunch of hot air in Denver with all the politicians in town, but Denver didn't get giddy yesterday, but instead breathed a huge sigh of relief. An announcement the other way would have elicited a much more vocal response. Considering the wafer-thin center position on the Avs a retirement announcement would have made Avs fans explode. (See What I did there?). So if Avs fans seem a little understated it's because we feel as if we just dodged a car wreck, not hit the lottery.

One aspect of his announcement I found incredibly impressive is how he was able to take all the life out of it, in typical quoteless Joe style. He schedules a press conference for Thursday, but signs the contract Wednesday. Then the team makes an official web-release and lets the news spread from there. Oh yeah he also slid it in on the day Barak Obama was officially nominated for president, when Bill Clinton was hours away from a speech. It makes you wonder if he just looks for ways to be understated.

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