Troy Renck: Has it really been 30 years? Avs players reflect on Denver's first championship at reunion.

DENVER — The Avalanche put hockey on the map in Colorado. It just took Peter Forsberg awhile to find Denver on the map.

He is telling a story from the summer of 1995, a story that illustrates how unlikely it was that magic happened. He smiles, and shows he can still provide a zinger like so many of his slap shots that first season.

“I got traded from Philadelphia to Quebec. And it was not a big city, and I was worried that we would never be able to win there. Then I am sitting at home in Sweden, and I had to figure out where the heck Denver was. I had never been. It was big. Woof. I was worried,” Forsberg told The Post. “And then we get here, and it all came together in every way.”

History repeated itself Wednesday night at the Paramount Theatre.

Rock music reverberated from the loud speakers buttressing the stage.

Alan Roach, whose voice makes anything big, introduced the 13 players. Shrill screams pierced the ceiling.

It’s been 30 years, so the memory is fuzzy, but it was impossible not to recognize these sounds, these songs, these men.

The Colorado Avalanche, nearly a year after COMSAT Video Enterprises purchased the Quebec Nordiques for $75 million and relocated the franchise to Denver, won the city’s first championship. That honor was always supposed to belong to the Broncos. But they were still finding their footing under coach Mike Shanahan, needing a few more pieces to help John Elway realize his professional dream nearly two decades in the making.

“We snuck past them,” said former star and rabble-rouser Claude Lemieux with a grin.

The Avs held a reunion to celebrate the inaugural team — Joe Sakic, Sandis Ozolinsh, Mike Ricci, Valeri Kamensky, Forsberg and Lemieux were among the headliners — that made millions in our Centennial state embrace hockey after the Colorado Rockies bolted to New Jersey in 1982.

It was a night for goosebumps, cheers and laughs, the theatre turning into McNichols Sports Arena.

The clock was set to fall of 1995. And then the summer of 1996.

Even as things were souring in Quebec, it seemed like Denver existed only as leverage to force the Canadian government to pony up money for a new arena. When the city officials refused to blink, Quebec was gone in a flash.

COMSAT owned the Nuggets, so the infrastructure was in place for a relatively seamless transition. And the owners did the right thing by letting former agent-turned-general manager Pierre Lacroix continue making the hockey decisions.

The Avs arrived in a hurry, refusing to pursue greatness in secret. Everything happened fast, from the scoring, the acquisitions, to the affection. By the ninth home game fans packed the place, starting one of the longest sellout streaks in hockey history.

If we are being honest, as many of the players were on the stage, the Avs wandered into our city as a curiosity. They walked around, ate at restaurants, Sakic recalled, without being recognized.

“I think half the fans thought we were an expansion team. So they were like, ‘Wow! These guys are really good for a new team.’ They didn’t realize how well established we were,” Lemieux said. “As it grew and got into the latter part of the season, everybody realized this is no expansion team. They knew we were really good. That we could win it all.”

Armed with young talent from a team that the New York Rangers knocked out of the playoffs the year before, the Avs needed seasoning. Lemieux, fresh off winning the Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy with the Devils, joined a few days before the opener.

But something still missing. A championship would not have happened without embarrassment. Montreal goalie Patrick Roy lost a game 11-1, and his marbles. He did not like Mario Tremblay as a teammate and did not respect him as a coach. He asked out, and Lacroix, his former agent, was happy to acquire the veteran star along with winger Mike Keane.

This trade would have never happened had the Avs remained in Quebec.

“I hated these guys. All of them,” Keane said Wednesday, as his teammates joked that the feeling was mutual. “And I thought (Ricci) was a (bleep),”

As the crowd laughed, Lemieux, no stranger to starting and defusing controversies, reminded Keane of how he fell in love with long-haired, crooked-nosed Ricci just as the entire state did.

“He was voted the sexiest man in Denver,” Lemieux said. “But he didn’t get any votes from our locker room.”

It was a room full of personalities and nationalities, with humor sometimes lost in translation. Rene Corbet was told by a teammate to play “Crazy,” and after a few goals one night, the nickname stuck.

“I think I have been called it 50 times since I got here today,” Corbet said. “I played every shift like that, maybe with crazy legs.”

It fit given the 1996 postseason motto was “Crazy for the Cup!”

The thing about this team, and why it is so revered, is that the Avs did not just win a championship. They grabbed it with chest out, both arms extended, and put the cup above their head for the entire world to see. They beat all comers. They started a rivalry with the Detroit Red Wings that remains the standard for modern excellence and resentment. And they finished off the Florida Panthers with a four-game sweep when defenseman Uwe Krupp scored the iconic clincher in triple overtime.

Just mentioning that goal drew cheers from the crowd of roughly 2,000.

On this joyous evening downtown, it brought a reminder that the Avs have the juice from the past and good vibes in the present. The current Avs club is threatening to break a record for points in a season, and is a lock for the franchise’s 22nd postseason berth since taking up residence in Colorado.

“To be part of anything that starts is special,” Lemieux said. “You see what they have done here, and it makes me think back to how it all came together. For me, watching guys win for the first time was really something I will never forget.”

For Forsberg, it all goes back to the place he had to find on the map. Forsberg is the father of three kids now. He has lived a full life. But he will always remember returning to his new home in Denver with the Stanley Cup.

“Seeing that sea of people in the parade, that sticks in the mind forever. When you play the game, you are in the moment, just trying to win. And when you are finally sober for a day after winning, it hits you,” Forsberg said. “We were told we were getting a parade. Nothing could have prepared me for that moment, for what I saw from those fans that day.”