A Different Perspective with Evan Rawal
Evan Rawal is from Littleton, Colorado, and started playing hockey at eight years old, around the time the Colorado Avalanche made its big debut in the 1995–96 season.
“Well, the Avalanche won the cup that first year when I was 8. So, that was kind of why I started playing. I think that was kind of the big moment for a lot of kids around my age, older and younger too. Just seeing the Avalanche play and winning that cup in ’96 kind of did it for us.”
Rawal played junior hockey up until his senior year of high school but still made it a priority to follow Colorado hockey.
He started his college education in Minnesota where he was pursuing a degree in journalism. However, Rawal switched to pursuing a business degree because everything was moving digital and he didn’t know what the future of journalism looked like for him.
“No one could’ve seen the internet just kind of taking over everything. Hindsight is 20/20.”
Rawal ended up graduating from Colorado State University (CSU) with a degree in business. After graduating from college, Rawal began covering the Colorado Avalanche in 2016.
Rawal now writes for an organization called Colorado Hockey Now. Before taking on his role as a beat writer for Colorado Hockey Now, Rawal spent time writing about hockey on message boards, leading him to write for DNVR.
“Hockey was always my top interest. So it just kind of made sense to write about that because I just know it.”
As a former fan, taking on the role of a journalist, Rawal was surprised at how quickly he was able to switch roles.
“The fandom, honestly, got kicked out of my soul pretty quickly. You have to kind of be unbiased and cover the team as they are. It is kind of interesting, you know you grow up being a fan, live and die by every single play and now you just kind of take it as it is.”
As the world of hockey continues to grow and make history, Rawal’s hopes to see Colorado hockey grow even more. He mentioned that high school hockey has a lot of room to grow, even though it’s already expanded exponentially since he played in high school. He also talked about the idea of getting a junior hockey team in Colorado.
“We got AHL, we got NHL. I think I heard there might be an ECHL team coming too. A junior team, I think it could do well if they put it in the right area.”