A packed Magness Arena was witness to a fantastic show put on by the alumni for the Colorado Avalanche and Denver Pioneers.

A surprisingly competitive game between the two squads ended in a 7-7 tie. A long shootout ended with a DU victory, as Dylan Gambrell beat the grandson Max Lacroix, grandson of former Avalanche general manager Pierre Lacroix, to win the game.

Here are 10 things we learned from a fun, nostalgia-inducing evening in Denver.

1. We’ve seen Joe Sakic the player, Joe Sakic the general manager, and on Sunday, we got to see coach Joe Sakic.

A hip injury forced Sakic to stay behind the bench for the game. When asked by The Denver Gazette about his coaching strategy, he kept it pretty simple.

“We hear it’s running time, so the importance is to win the faceoff, ice the puck, kill the clock,” Sakic joked. “And I think the most important thing for our locker room, if we can come out of there injury-free, we’ve done our job. Manage ice time.”

Not sure coaching will be in his future.

2. The last Swede to come back from an extended absence for a postseason run was Peter Forsberg, so who better to talk about what Gabriel Landeskog went through?

“It’s great to see him back,” Forsberg told The Denver Gazette. “I was out (with injury) back-and-forth, here and there. He was out straight for almost three years, and it’s amazing what he did in the playoffs when he came back…I played golf with him yesterday. It’s good to see him and he can actually swing the club, so hopefully he’ll be good on the ice, too.”

Landeskog was in the building and was interviewed late in the game, telling the loud fans in the building that he’s excited to get the season going. A “Landy!” chant broke out soon after.

3. Forsberg, by the way, is proof that if you’re a competitor, it never leaves your body even years after retirement. He was slamming his stick on the ice calling for the puck and you could tell he really wanted a goal. At one point in the second period, he missed the net and decided to just give his stick to a fan in the second row.

That fan happened to be wearing a Forsberg All-Star jersey. Probably not a coincidence.

4. Darren Helm and Andrew Cogliano were dumping and chasing the puck like it was the 2022 playoffs. Helm scored a second period goal on a shot that looked eerily similar to the one he used to eliminate the St. Louis Blues three years ago.

5. Tyson Barrie hasn’t officially announced his retirement but given he was skating for the Avalanche alumni and only retired players were suiting up, it feels like that says something. It’s kind of cool to see the newer generation of Avalanche players make their way to games like this.

He joked during an intermission interview that he had some nice plays, some bad plays, and “that pretty much sums up my career.”

6. Peter Mueller was another interesting player that took part in the game. He recently retired after playing several years overseas in the Czech Republic.

He’ll always be one of those “what could have been?” players. When he got to the Avalanche, he started red hot. Unfortunately, concussion issues forced him to miss a lot of time and his NHL career never recovered.

7. John-Michael Liles and Mark Rycroft had some fun during a TV timeout, replaying the viral moment from this summer that took place at a Coldplay concert.

8. Liles threw a hit along the boards in the first period on one of his buddies playing for DU. Adam Foote, who was on the bench for the game, joked during an interview on the Jumbotron that Liles had already thrown more hits in this game than he did his entire NHL career.

9. Overall, it was a fantastic event and a pretty entertaining game in front of a large crowd who loved every second of it. Can you ever really get tired of seeing Milan Hejduk score a goal off a nice pass by Peter Forsberg? Or watching Liles fly up the ice and snipe one on a goaltender? Or see Rycroft flail all over the ice early in the game and take some heat from his Altitude buddies for it?

10. Oh yeah, as for the season that lies ahead for the Avalanche, Sakic sounded very confident in the team they’ve assembled.

“I know the guys are excited to get going. I feel like we got a really good team,” Sakic said. “We should be able to get off to a really good start and build off that momentum.”