My Top 4 Denver Sports Moments of All-Time

Oh, and I do! I love sports! Growing up I played damn near every sport in some form or fashion, my dad had encyclopedic knowledge of players from what seemed like every sport, the Chicago Cubs played on WGN in what felt like every single afternoon of my childhood summer, and I’ve been privileged enough to live in a city where I’ve seen my teams win seven championships (3 for the Broncos, 3 for the Avalanche, and 1 for the Nuggets).

So, because the Broncos, Avalanche and Nuggets are all at or near the top of the heap in their respective leagues, and with the Rockies showing some actual signs of life in the front office instead of their usual Dunder Mifflin-style shenanigans, let’s take a fun walk down memory lane with all of them.

For your reading pleasure, I’ve picked out my favorite moment from each team. These aren’t necessarily the most significant moments in their history – some not even the most significant or memorable moments from that game – just simply my favorites (with an honorable mention). And don’t worry, I’ll tell you why. But let’s get on with it because, let’s face it, no one reads these fucking intros anyway.

Honorable Mention: Carlos Gonzalez hits a walk-off home run against the Cubs to complete the cycle in the 9^th inning

As both a Rockies and Cubs fan, I used to find it difficult to decide who to root for at Coors Field when the Cubs would come to town. But after attending several of these games and interacting with the Cub fans there, my choice became increasingly easy. Cub fans are so impossibly obnoxious I had no desire to associate myself with them. And this game had some especially odious Cub fans in front of me – just five frat boy asswipes who never shut the fuck up and were bad sports to boot.

The game itself was killer! Clutch hitting, a few dingers, great weather, and a packed house on a Saturday night. Carlos Gonzalez had himself a season in 2010, man! I just looked it up and here’s how he finished:

.336 AVG / 34 HR / 117 RBI / 26 SB / 197 HITS / 5.8 WAR

Good lord! That was the season everyone stopped questioning the Matt Holliday trade and firmly got on the CarGo bandwagon. And this game was definitely a pinnacle. In the game he’d already singled, tripled, doubled and hit a sac fly for an RBI. As the Rockies were trying to close it out, Rafael Betancourt gave up a 3-run homer in the 8^th to Derrek Lee which made everyone groan so loudly, I think it registered on the Richter Scale. The d-bags in front of us were naturally thrilled and not at all insufferable about it.

But after Huston Street held the Cubs scoreless in the 9^th, CarGo led off the bottom of the inning. He stepped in against Sean Marshall and I remember thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great if he just parked one to complete the cycle?” And before I could even finish the thought, Marshall delivered the first pitch and Gonzalez blasted the hardest hit ball I’ve ever seen in real life into the 3^rd deck and right into the laps of a couple of Cub fans sitting in the front row right above the Office Liquidators sign.

I was sitting on the first base side about even with the bag, and as soon as he made contact, I knew it was gone. I’ve never seen a ball leave the yard that fast. It’s like he shot it out of a potato gun. The crowd went completely apeshit, the skidmark Cub fans in front of us were disappointed, and Rockies faithful lived their best lives that night. One of my favorite things I’ve ever witnessed at a live sporting event.

Rockies: Todd Helton hits a walk-off homer against Takeshi Saito in the middle of Rocktober

It’s September 18 and the Rockies have a doubleheader against the Dodgers who, for them, are having something of a middling season. The Rockies are still alive for the playoffs, but barely. They need to at least win this series, if not sweep it, to keep their meager playoff hopes alive. It’s a Tuesday and I’m watching the game in bed alone.

In a back-and-forth game, the Rockies are heading into the 9^th down 8-7 and have the unenviable task of facing Takeshi Saito, an all-star that year who finished with a 1.40 ERA and 39 saves. The Rockies did precisely dick against him all year prior to this game. But up steps Todd, face of the franchise who endured so many seasons that were just tsunamis of dogshit. And he plasters a breaking ball into the right field stands to win the game and kick Rocktober off in earnest.

But what stands out most is the last 90 feet of his home run trot where Todd drops his usual stoic demeanor, flings his helmet into the air, starts yelling, and jumps into the cheering pile of teammates sending everyone into euphoria. I lay in my bed grinning like an idiot thinking that maybe the Rockies still had a shot at this thing. I’d never seen Todd that excitable, so if he felt it, why couldn’t I? They went on to win 11 of their next 12, then 7 more in a row in the playoffs before getting swept by the lousy Boston Red Sox in the World Series. This one still makes me smile every time I think about it.

Denver Broncos: Steve Atwater sacks Brett Favre in Super Bowl XXXII and causes him to fumble

Steve Atwater is maybe my favorite Bronco ever. Brett Favre is among my least favorite football players ever. Hook this fucking play right up to my veins!

If you’re a Bronco fan (and old enough, I suppose), you remember this Super Bowl as one of the best Super Bowls of all-time. The heavily favored Packers had young gunslinger Brett Favre and some giant fatass at defensive tackle who everyone feared for some reason as their marquee players to complement an abundance of weapons on both offense and defense.

The Broncos were on a revenge tour that year as they vanquished the Jaguars who shocked them the year before in the divisional round (in a game that still lives in my nightmares), the Chiefs who had beaten them twice already (and are a team that every Denver fan rightfully hates), and the Steelers who had also beaten us that year.

When Green Bay scored on their opening drive, my asshole puckered because this team had railroaded everyone that season after winning the previous year’s Super Bowl. Thankfully the Broncos answered right back, then went up 14-7 in the 2^nd quarter. On the next drive Steve Atwater went in untouched and absolutely blindsided Brett Favre causing him to cough up the ball, which DE Neil Smith recovered. I may have yelped louder than I ever had in that moment because here was my favorite player absolutely laying waste Favre’s phony cornpone ass.

Denver went on to win the game 31-24. Brett Favre later went on to send a picture of his ding dong to reporter Jenn Sterger and defraud the state of Mississippi. Fuck Brett Favre.

Colorado Avalanche: Darren Helm fires a prayer past Ville Husso in Game 6 of the Western Conference Semifinals to send the Avs to the Western Conference Finals

May 27, 2022: Not only is it a potential clinching game for the Avalanche in a heated playoff series, it’s Music Video Theatre Vol. 6! For those new here, Music Video Theatre (or MVT) is where me, my wife, and two friends all select 10 music videos. They send them to me, I put them in a list curated for maximum vibe, we get ripped, and watch all 40 videos.

The Avs are tied with the Blues in the waning seconds of the game as we’re getting ready to start the list. We have kids, so we do this after they go to bed. It’s already late, the list takes about 2.5 hours to get through and we can’t delay any further. Our pal Jason is watching the game on his phone. As I’m clicking through the YouTube menu, out of nowhere Jason goes, “YES!” and pumps his fist. He shares with us what happened, so we immediately pause and put the game on the TV. With 16 seconds left, Cale Makar all the way behind his own goal flips it to Erik Johnson who skates it up the far side boards. Johnson drops it to Logan O’Connor who wings it across the ice to the nearside. It bounces off the boards, and Darren Helm – Darren Helm! The penalty kill specialist who is like the Mayor of the 4^th line! – just rips a slapshot on net that sails past three St. Louis Blues players and goalie Ville Husso. The look on the Blues players’ faces will always live fondly in my schadenfreude-tainted heart. Two other things of note.

1. This series victory was especially sweet after the wretched St. Louis fans wrongly blamed Nazem Kadri for injuring their pissbaby goalie Jordan Binnington in Game 3. Kadri came back and scored a hat trick in Game 4 to stick it right in their stupid bigoted faces. Watching them lose a brutal Game 6 was just the icing on the cake.

2. Shout out to whoever plays the organ at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis. After Helm put that one home, he immediately played “abcdefu” by GAYLE which is both hilarious and perfect for that moment for how Blues fans were likely feeling. In a weird coincidence, that song also appeared in MVT Vol. 6. The bonus track I put on that volume is a drunk guy singing Seal’s “Kiss From a Rose” to his cat. You’re welcome.

Denver Nuggets: “Jamal Murray Made a Shot”

I have watched this sequence somewhere between 50 and 10,000 times. Here’s the call from the Nuggets broadcasters. Here’s a view from the seats with one of the loudest crowd pops I have ever, ever heard. And here’s Anthony Davis with the iconic description of what happened after Murray did this over him.

After years, nay DECADES, of futility against the hated Los Angeles Lakers, in 2023 the Nuggets swept these starfucking assholes en route to winning their first championship. Then the Nuggets beat them on Opening Night while receiving their championship rings, then again in February when the Lakers unveiled a butt ugly 19-foot statue of Kobe Bryant in LA, then less than a month later when LeBron James surpassed 40,000 points in his career, also in LA. If the Lakers were having Cheerios, the Nuggets were always right there to piss in them. Glorious.

Then we draw Los Angeles again in the first round of the playoffs having won 8 in a row against these dickweeds. Game 1 is a back-and-forth affair where the Lakers are feistier than normal, which Denver wins thanks to a bitchin’ close to the 3^rd quarter.

Game 2 starts late as shit. Everyone in my house has gone to bed leaving me to watch the game on the couch with our extremely old cat Jax. The Nuggets look like ass to start the game and fall to a 15-point deficit at halftime. Given the way the Nuggets had turned into the Lakers’ daddy, I was weirdly complacent about how far down they were. Early in the 3^rd that deficit grew to 20, yet I remained unconcerned. Maybe it was the cat on my chest, maybe it was the weed, maybe it was both, maybe it was the Lakers being a bunch of punk bitches, but I was one chilled out mofo.

Then they started to claw back. A 3-ball here, a defensive stop there, chip-chip-chipping away as the deficit fell to 10 by the end of the 3^rd quarter. The Nuggets finally tied the game on an MPJ 3 with a little more than a minute to go. 17 seconds left, score once again tied, and LeBron pushes Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to the floor to contrive himself a wide open 3. Which he promptly bricks.

MPJ grabs the rebound and hands it off to Murray. The Nuggets have a timeout left, but they don’t call it. Murray brings it up the floor, gets Anthony Davis switched onto him, drives toward the right baseline, jab step, step back, launches it as time expires, SWISH. Both he and Davis fall into the Nuggets bench as Murray gets mobbed and Davis sulks off.

I basked in the glow of that beautiful shot alone and quiet on my couch with my buddy. What a great night. Sadly, (sorry SAD PLOT TWIST COMING) that was one of the last nights I ever spent with Jax as he passed away three days later. The Nuggets closed out the Lakers in five games (a gentleman’s sweep – never let it be said the Nuggets aren’t charitable sometimes), and then went on to choke against the Timberwolves.

But what always puts a smile on my face when I think about that Nuggets year?

Jamal Murray made a shot.