| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: THE AVALANCHE GUILD IS SHUTTING ITS DOORS

Denver, CO – With the 2011-12 Colorado Avalanche season under wraps and after a historic year of coverage, The Avalanche Guild will be officially shutting down production effective immediately.

Since the 2007-08 season, The Avalanche Guild has successfully advanced and enhanced the local adult hockey community through a wide variety of interactive events, including the patented After-Hours program, the Battle for the Banner Shootout Tournament, viewing parties, and numerous discount ticket programs.

More recently, The Avalanche Guild partnered with a grassroots fan campaign, The Burgundy Brigade, in an effort to unite adult Colorado Avalanche fans in a single, unstoppable group. Hosting Burgundy Brigade Game of the Month offers, the two groups proudly brought together passionate Avalanche fans in a loud but welcome environment to cheer their favorite team at Pepsi Center.

With time increasingly devoured by his dedication to all things goalies, independent pro goalie scout and The Hockey Guild founder Justin Goldman made the decision to commit 100-percent of his time to his scouting career. After dedicating more than eight years to the local hockey scene through his work as editor-in-chief of the Colorado Hockey Insider (2003-2007) and then as the owner and founder of The Avalanche Guild, his efforts will now be focused on his three goaltending projects: The Goalie Guild, GoaliePost, and writing weekly articles for NHL.com.

“The Avalanche Guild is a project I’m extremely proud of,” Goldman said. “I was honored to have had the opportunity to work side-by-side with the Avalanche to promote the team, and to host interactive events on Pepsi Center ice. I was fortunate to have their support, and I can’t thank them enough for that. So many adult hockey players had memorable on-ice experiences due to their support of our programs, and from the first year until this very day, every event we ran was successful. Now the Avs have more interactive and discount ticket programs than ever before, and I am proud to have been a part of their fan development since the 2007-08 season.”

In 2008, Goldman was hired by Mile High Sports Radio (AM 1510) to co-host radio shows dedicated to covering the Avalanche. He was the co-host of Avalanche PostGame for the 2008-09 season, and then a co-host alongside Mike Haynes and Derek Armstrong for Avalanche Weekly, which aired once a week during the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons.

As Goldman’s commitment to scouting goaltenders grew over the past two seasons, the role of running The Avalanche Guild became a full-time responsibility for Content Manager Ryan Boulding. Boulding cut his teeth covering the Colorado Avalanche for his own website, The Burgundy Blog, before being acquired by The Avalanche Guild in November, 2010.

“I’m proud of the time I put into The Avalanche Guild and the impact that it has had within the Colorado Avalanche community as well as the hockey nation,” said Boulding. “We’ve managed to help unite a segmented group of Avalanche fans and the act itself was more rewarding than the outcome.  While I’m sad that the site is closing, I look forward to continuing to provide coverage of the Avs and to connecting with hockey fans around the world.”

During his time with the site, Boulding saw record traffic increase year over year while providing news, analysis, and opinion for two seasons. He co-founded a sporadic-at-best podcast, Two Guys 1 Puck, which brought an auditory assault of sports talk to the content heavy Guild site and featured a few guests, including Adrian Dater of The Denver Post.

Boulding also developed a healthy relationship with local powerhouse Mile High Sports, providing biweekly coverage of Denver’s local NHL team which will continue into next season and will spill over into the locally renowned Mile High Sports Magazine as well as other outlets.

For more information on this announcement please contact Justin Goldman via e-mail at justin@thehockeyguild.com or at 720-273-0444.

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