While watching the Colorado Avalanche blunder through a game against the San Jose Sharks, I got to thinking about how bad this team really is. More importantly, just how bad has the franchise become?  So I posed the question on Twitter to the seven people watching the game: which is the worse franchise? The Avs or the Rockies?

To my surprise, more than seven people gave their input. It was evenly split for both, with the hockey fans more apt to condemn the Rockies and the baseball fans quick to point out the shortcomings of the Avs. But one thing we could all agree on was that both clubs are horrendous: on the field/ice, and more importantly in their front offices. The Rockies and Avs have done nothing but lose the faith of their fans, while their management fiddles as their respective Romes burn to the ground.

In the mini debate, one person really hit it on the head though:

Fabian sanchez II ‏@Fabiansanchez25

@JohnReidyDenver honestly the avs are worse. It comes down to the avs were once the gem of the nhl. The rockies have been mediocre at best.

Mr. Sanchez’s point nearly sealed the debate in one easy tweet. The Rockies are pathetic, but they’ve always been pathetic. Ok, maybe that one October in 2007 was the exception, but for the most part, they’ve been bad and we don’t expect much from them. The Monforts still pack the place and Rockies fans seem to value good times in the sun over quality baseball in the fall. Coors Field has been called “Wrigley West” for its similarity to the Cubs home in Chicago: drunken fun at the “in” place to be, no matter how bad the product is on the field. The Rockies really haven’t let us down as a franchise because they’ve never given us any standard to uphold.

The Avalanche on the other hand is a different story. Once the shining example of what a perennial NHL contender should look like, the team is now a mess of spare parts. With a lame duck coach and a miserly front office that has run the team into the ground while the owner blindly tends to his many other business ventures. The Avs are a rolling, on fire, husk of its former self, while the Rockies are just more of the same.

When the Broncos hit rock bottom a few years back during the Josh McDaniels debacle, the team could have easily become a Jacksonville Jaguars level joke in the NFL. But Pat Bowlen wisely stopped the bleeding by installing John Elway who got them back on their feet in a matter of two seasons. The Avs have been scraping their bellies on rock bottom for several years now and it doesn’t seem like they will come up for air anytime soon.

So you can point to the Rockies and the team’s ongoing ineptitude, but it’s really the Avs who are the embarrassment here. Like a star high school athlete gone to seed, the Avs once attainted greatness, only to hit the skids so hard Lindsay Lohan said “damn”. This earns the Avs the dubious distinction of being Denver’s worst sports franchise. The good news? The Rockies 20^th season begins in a month so there’s plenty of time for them to take the title back.