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Former Avalanche-fan favorite hankering for hockey

Irv Moss
The Denver Post
Denver, CO Colorado

DENVER, Colorado ” Adam Deadmarsh once was so popular in Denver, he had a line of pickles named after him ” “Deadmarsh Deli Dills.” And if any Avs fans out there still have an unopened jar of them, better toss out the actual pickles. They haven’t been produced for nearly a decade now.

“There was a company that was doing stuff with other players, and they came to me. It was kind of a funny thing to do. It ended up being pretty popular,” Deadmarsh said in a phone interview Monday. “We still have a few jars of them around the house, in the basement. I would have to be stranded on a desert island to break into them and eat them, though.”

It has been eight years since Deadmarsh played for the Avalanche, but the memories still seem fresh. The floppy hair, the pigeon-toed skating stride, the aw-shucks grin ” any Avs fan worth their salt instantly knew them as “Deader” trademarks.



He never was very talkative or flashy, but Deadmarsh had legions of fans who loved his old-school, throw-’em-down-at-any-time style of hockey. On a team full of stars, some people forgot how good a player he was, too; his 33 goals led the Avs in their Presidents’ Trophy 1996-97 season, and he played on a line mostly with Joe Sakic in the playoffs during Colorado’s 1996 Stanley Cup run.

“It seems like a long time ago now, the Cup, but the memories are still so strong. Fond memories are always quick to come back,” he said. “I hear a lot from Red Wings fans about that year still. There’s a lot of them where we live now.”

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Deadmarsh’s NHL career ended too soon. Concussions forced his retirement in 2005 as a Los Angeles King, after three years of recurrent headaches and dizziness. Deadmarsh never recovered from being accidentally kicked in the head by a Kings teammate at a practice. Even now, he has trouble exercising for long without symptoms recurring, but otherwise he is feeling normal.

Deadmarsh has made peace with how his career ended. He lives a quiet life, primarily in Idaho, with wife Christa and twin daughters Alexis and Madison. Deadmarsh has dabbled in the construction business the last few years, but admits to a hankering for the hockey rink again.

“After I came to the realization I wasn’t going to play again, I kind of got totally away from hockey for a couple years. It was just my way of dealing with things,” Deadmarsh said. “But now, I’d really like to get back into the game again, doing something, maybe some coaching. Hockey was my whole life for so long, you can’t help but miss it and want to be involved with it again.”


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