DENVER — "Awesome. This is awesome," Jackie Bateman said, as she stared around the empty Ball Arena from ice level.
"I've never seen it from here before," her father Jeff quipped. "No, we're usually up in the stands over there," Jackie's mother Vicki Bateman said.
But not on this day, not when 12-year-old Jackie had one simple wish.
"Just to meet all of the players on the Colorado Avalanche and just see what they're like," she said.
Thanks to Make-A-Wish Colorado and the Colorado Avalanche, and well, a few friendly guys, her wish was granted.
Jackie lives with brain cancer and wished to spend her day with her favorite ice hockey team. When the guys got wind of their guest, they made sure to make her day even more special.
"I think for us at the end of the day, it's a job but when you see someone like that and you see how much it means for them to come and hang out with us a little bit, it definitely puts it all into perspective for us and makes us enjoy it that much more," Avalanche forward Logan O'Connor said.
Both O'Connor and his teammate Fredrik Olofsson took time during morning skate to catch up with Jackie, who was perched on the visitor's bench on the ice level.
"It's easy to get caught up in your day-to-day stuff of chasing the puck and trying to get it in the other people's net but you realize every now and then that it's bigger than you," Olofsson said.
Jackie said meeting the team exceeded every one of her expectations.
"It's just heartwarming for me that the guys are really interactive with their fans," she said. "It's awesome."
Interactive and generous. Yet, Jackie still never expected to get her hands on a gift that's seen a point in every home same thus far this season. Her favorite player, Nathan MacKinnon, signed a stick for her that read, "Your Pal."
"The most amazing day of my life," she said in between tears.
And the Avs made sure she'd never forget it with her own personalized stall right next to number 29.
"Unbelievable. Not in a thousand years would I think that I would get my own locker in this locker room," she said.
For one day, Jackie was able to escape the hardships of her young life and experience her wildest dreams.
"This day means that I got through cancer, I survived, and I got my wish."
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