Wednesday, October 7, 2026

Colorado keeps October 7, three years after the attacks

2023 · Denver and Boulder

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. Colorado has kept the date: a full Temple Emanuel, a Pearl Street walk that was firebombed, and a Denver Health playroom for children who did not come home.

Three years ago this morning, Hamas attacked southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed. About 250 were taken hostage. Governor Jared Polis, the state's first Jewish governor, later called it the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Forty-six of the dead were Americans. Colorado did not watch it from a distance and then change the subject.

On the first anniversary, about 2,000 people filled Temple Emanuel in Denver. Polis spoke. So did Attorney General Phil Weiser. Dekel Shalev, who had hidden with her husband and three children in a saferoom at Kibbutz Be'eri while more than a hundred neighbors were killed, lit a memorial candle. She and her family live in Colorado now. JEWISHcolorado called the evening a gathering. The room behaved like one.

The date did not stay in the sanctuary. A Boulder chapter of Run for Their Lives had been walking Pearl Street every week since the attacks, eighteen minutes, for the hostages still held in Gaza. On June 1, 2025, Mohamed Sabry Soliman attacked that walk with a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails. Wikipedia's count is at least seven people injured, including the attacker. Karen Diamond, 82, died of her injuries on June 25. One of the people burned was Barbara Steinmetz, a Holocaust survivor. The walk had been the proof that October 7 was already a Colorado date.

The quieter local answer is a room. Four Denver women, Efrat Ben-Shitrit, Alyce Blum, Danit Damari, and Aliza Scheier, started raising money to remake the pediatric playroom at Denver Health in memory of Shiri Bibas and her sons Ariel and Kfir, taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz that morning and murdered in captivity. By early October 2026 the project had 206 gifts and nearly $69,000. Ben-Shitrit's own son had been ten months old on the day, about Kfir's age. That is the Colorado version of the date. Not a slogan. A room where a child can play.

The other two stories on this calendar can take a joke. This one cannot.

Sources: Governor Polis — one-year statement, Oct. 7, 2024 · JEWISHcolorado — From Darkness to Light, Oct. 7, 2024 · Wikipedia — 2025 Boulder fire attack · JEWISHcolorado — Denver Health playroom, Oct. 2026

The Avalanche meet Gretzky on night two, and Sakic's pair is not enough

1995 · Great Western Forum, Inglewood

On Oct. 7, 1995, one night after opening with a win at Detroit, the new Colorado Avalanche lost 4-2 to Wayne Gretzky's Kings. Joe Sakic scored both goals. A rookie scored twice in his first NHL game.

The Colorado Avalanche were one day old as a winning idea and already on a plane. On Friday, Oct. 6, 1995, they had opened the franchise with a 3-2 win at Detroit. Saturday night they were at the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, which is a long way to go to meet Wayne Gretzky and lose.

The Kings scored thirty seconds in. Pat Conacher. Then Vitali Yachmenev, in his first NHL game, scored on a power play with Gretzky and Dmitri Khristich assisting. Joe Sakic answered on a power play of his own, from Valeri Kamensky and Anders Myrvold, at 6:25. In the second Sakic tied it, his second of the night, after Adam Deadmarsh's pass bounced off a Kings skate and found him at the doorstep. Peter Forsberg had a breakaway. Byron Dafoe stopped it. Stephane Fiset was in the Colorado net for 59 minutes and 37 seconds and still left with the loss.

Yachmenev scored again in the third, another Gretzky assist, and Rick Tocchet finished it into an empty net. Final, 4-2. Larry Robinson got the win in his first game as Kings coach. Sakic had both Colorado goals. It was not enough, which is a sentence the new team would get tired of hearing until June, when they won the Cup. On this date the name Avalanche was still a rumor with a good center, and the other bench had 99 on it.

The barn they were building the habit for was McNichols, on Bryant. The game that introduced them to the Pacific Division was not played there.

Sources: Hockey-Reference — Avalanche at Kings, Oct. 7, 1995 · USA Today score wire — Avalanche 2, Kings 4

October 7 is the average first freeze, and it has also been 87

1934 · Denver

Denver's average first freeze is Oct. 7. The date record is 87, in 1934. The record low is 23, in 1970, the same year the high only reached 38. The snowiest October 7 dropped 4 inches, in 1946.

The National Weather Service keeps a normal high of 69 and a normal low of 41 for this date in Denver. The record high is 87, in 1934. The record low is 23, in 1970, which is also the year the high only reached 38, the coldest maximum on the books. The warmest low is 55, in 2006. The wettest October 7 is 0.77 inches, in 1957. The snowiest is 4.0 inches, in 1946. Same date. Shorts, or a shovel. Pick before you leave the house.

Gardeners already know the other number. Oct. 7 is Denver's average first freeze, the morning the tomato stops negotiating. It is an average, which is why 2025's first freeze did not show up until Oct. 19, and why 2020's arrived on Sept. 8, tied for earliest. Eight of the ten first freezes before that 2025 morning came after the average. The calendar is a suggestion. The basil does not read it.

The week narrative is wind with a little snow mixed in, which is October's sense of humor. In 1903 north winds downtown held at 40 and gusted to 48. In 1917 a front brought the season's first trace of snow, 0.22 inches of rain, hail, and no thunder, with gusts to 52. In 1985 a chinook hit Boulder and Squaw Mountain at 60 to 70 while Stapleton only managed 41. On Oct. 7-8, 1990, the season's first real snow put 3 to 7 inches on the metro and 4.0 inches at Stapleton. The coat and the T-shirt are both correct. You will pick the wrong one.

Sources: NWS Boulder — Denver October normals and records · 9NEWS — Denver's average first freeze is Oct. 7 · Denver Post — 2025 first freeze, Oct. 19 · ThorntonWeather — Oct. 7 to 13 Denver weather history