Avs can take a lesson from Blues.(The Gazette)

DENVER _ Maybe nobody ever asked them, but it's pretty certain that the St. Louis Blues didn't each take a turn last summer with the President's Trophy.

There were no tales of one player taking it fishing, another chugging Molson from the bowl, another retrieving it from the bottom of a pool the morning after a party.

They don't hold parades to show off the President's Trophy, a good thing because the flimsy little glass bowl sitting atop three shiny posts is much too fragile for the rigors of a true celebration, at least the kind a hockey player would want to attend.

The Blues had worked so hard to get the league's best record that they face-planted come playoff time. If history has taught us anything, _ and, apparently, it hasn't, otherwise we wouldn't be going through this whole boy-band craze _ it's that a team's seed really doesn't matter.

The Colorado Avalanche seems ripe to become the latest exhibit in this macabre museum of wad-blowers. For those who consider a blue-and-burgundy Avalanche jersey the finest article of clothing in their closet, a little tinge of doubt has certainly crept into the back of your head.

For six months, the Avs have been deemed the team to beat come playoff time. That time is just about here. And the Avs, despite the President's Trophy that will proclaim them the regular-season's best team, suddenly seem just another club with a reasonable chance to win the Stanley Cup - no different than New Jersey, Dallas or Detroit, maybe even Ottawa.

For whatever reason - the weight of expectations, maybe, or just being too tuckered out from the regular season - holding the President's Trophy is as lucky ...