Postcards From Quebec: Feb. 11-12

The Colorado Avalanche Pee-Wee team began its journey to Quebec City on Tuesday morning starting at Denver International Airport. The team's flight took them to Montreal where the team bus picked the group up and drove The Jr. Avs to Quebec City. No team activities took place due to the full day of travel.
After a team breakfast at the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac, the Jr. Avs headed to Complexe Sportif Wendake to play in their first match of the trip, an exhibition game versus Jésus-Marie de Beauceville Lynx.

The Lynx are a school team consisting of secondary school students, the equivalent of 7th and 8th grade in the United States. Goaltenders Matthew Toomey and Griffin Niedzielski split the game, resulting in a 3-2 victory. Defenseman Chip Olsen, the honorary first post-card submission, assisted on all three goals of the game scored by forwards Grady Glandorf, Dimarco Benallo and Mathias Silaban.

Later in the evening, the Jr. Avs headed to Érablière le Chemin du Roy to meet their billet families for the first time where they enjoyed a traditional Canadian Sugar Shack experience in rural Quebec. The team ate a nice dinner with live interactive music, mingled with their families that they will stay with for the remainder of their trip and concluded the night with some fun activities in the snow.
The Jr. Avs will play their second Exhibition match tomorrow with another exciting team activity on the books.
Defenseman #10 Chip Olsen
Dear Avs Fans,
The first thing we did for our trip to Quebec was get on the plane. I've never flown to a different country before and the start has been super fun. It was kind of weird flying longer than normal. I like that since we represent the Avalanche, we get to wear the same stuff as the NHL players and how we all flew on the plane together as a team. We got to stay in a hotel for one night and it was cool to be in a room with just my teammates.
On Wednesday, we played in our first exhibition game. It was fun playing a Quebec school team because they challenged us. They scored the first goal but then we came back and racked up three goals. I got 3 assists in the game and the final score was 3-2. Later my teammates and I got to meet our billet families and that was so cool. The kids were so excited to see us and once we started to get to know them, they started to hang around us more. We got to go sledding at the Sugar Shack and our billet brothers joined us. At the end of the night we made our own maple syrup popsicles and they tasted amazing. I can't wait to play more hockey this week!
Sincerely,#10