SB Nation Denver: All Posts by Mike Sjerven

It was the Year of the Fan, and all I got were a bunch of losses

2012-10-16T12:00:05Z

Being a Colorado Rockies fan in 2012 is a lot like telling people your favorite "Saved by the Bell" character was Tori. Generally people are going to respond with either "Who?" or "Ugh....why?" And as a Rox fan I often felt like SbtB fans did when Tori showed up out of the blue.

"Wait a second ... who is that? Where's the people I know and love?"

Twenty twelve was billed as The Year of the Fan. With the season over, I just want to say, "Um ... thanks?"

Apparently the Year of the (**** hitting the) Fan meant there was "an unprecedented number of promotions and giveaways." Which is sort of like wishing and hoping Santa brings you a new X-Box, and then on Christmas morning you just get to open an envelope that has a coupon for "An Unprecedented Number of Promotions and Giveaways."

Do you know what Orioles fans got this year? An unprecedented number of wins.

But a couple weeks ago, I had to make one more trip to Coors Field to pay my respects to a season gone wrong as the Rockies hosted the division leading Giants.

As I walked in to the game, I stopped by a concession stand for a beer. "That will be $7.50, sir," said the woman at the register.

"Isn't there like a discount if the Rockies are in last place?" I asked.

"Um, no."

The Rockies' front office has been regularly criticized for being out of touch with the fans. This would be a nice little way for them to get back in the good graces of the Denver community. For every 10 games out of first place the Rox are, beer prices drop 50 cents.

Another idea I had for improving the fans' experience when the Rockies are really bad would be changing the Stub Hub Move of the Game. This is where fans get picked to move from their crappy seats to really good club seats in Coors Field. I was thinking maybe they could move the fans to a Rangers-A's game.

Also, a big sign above the Helton Burger Shack that you could see from all over Coors Field that would let you know if the shake machine is broken would be a nice touch. That's a long walk.

Basically, the Rockies missed a number of opportunities to really make this year about the fan. When the team went south, the public relations department should have been turned loose, rewarding fans for coming out to the games at every turn.

The in-game trivia and contests should have been A) rigged so that the fan always won; and B) doling out some serious prizes.

"OK, Steve, true or false: Troy Tulowitzki eats food every day."

"Um, true?"

"That's right! You win the Rockies Prize Pack, which is just a sack full of $250,000!"

If they can count people's texts to vote on what song to play between innings, can't there be some way for the fans to text in lineups or pitching changes or something? Can we turn the management of the game into a Choose Your Own Adventure story?

(NOTE: At this point I was a little worried about this here rant turning into the plot of the movie "Eddie." When I told my wife that, she said she had never heard of "Eddie." Basically stars Whoopi Goldberg as a huge New York Knicks fan who gets hired to coach the team. I tried to IMDB it for my wife, and it really takes some searching to find. It's not one of Whoopi's more ... celebrated films. Maybe I would have been fine making this whole story the plot of "Eddie" and no one would have been the wiser.)

There were umpires at the game, which shouldn't be surprising. They need to be there for the game to be official. And the since the Giants are usually playoff bound you need to make sure all of their games are on the up and up. But I was thinking it would save significant money if they just didn't have umpires for the games when both teams have no shot, like when the Rockies played their final home series of the year against the Cubs.

The umpires' union would never go for the umps not getting paid, so maybe just pay the umpires like ¾ of their normal game pay and let them stay at home if both teams are more than 15 games out in September. The league gets to save basically the cost of one full umpire per game, and the umps get to spend time with family and they don't have to watch the Rockies and Cubs play.

As I reached my seat, I decided to put myself in an optimistic state of mind. "You know, there could still be some history made tonight. Maybe Jeff Francis will throw a no-hitter? Or at least a complete game shutout?"

These hopes were dashed when the no-hitter was gone after the second pitch. The shutout was gone after the fourth pitch. The Giants scored 5 runs in the top of the first inning. During the Giants' rally, a group came in and sat right in front of me. They then proceeded to figure out who was tallest by having people stand back to back, in round-robin fashion. Ordinarily this would be extremely annoying, but it was actually a pretty close competition and I found the novelty compelling.

Jeff Francis was out of the game after 5 innings, partially because of the 5 run first, but also because he had reached the 75 pitch limit the Rockies starters were operating under this year.

I'm still not completely sure how I feel about the whole 75-pitch-limit-with-a-four-man-rotation thing. On one hand, I do feel sympathetic to the starting pitching card O'Dowd was dealt this year. Going into the 2011 season, he had to feel great with the Rockies sporting the best 1-2 punch the rotation had ever had. But Jorge De La Rosa got hurt, and the Ubaldo Jimenez, who won 19 games in 2010, fell into the Springfield Mystery Spot and was replaced with a soft-tossing malcontent. And as 2012 started, it was clear that because of injuries and young pitchers being forced into the rotation too early that it was going to be a rough year pitching-wise. So I do give him credit for thinking outside the box and trying something.

But that something was akin to the Rockies going skydiving, and when their chute didn't open, they started furiously flapping their arms.

I am curious to know what the meetings were like that led to the four-man rotation with a 75-pitch limit looked like.

"OK, we're going to have the starters pitch 75 pitches, and we're only going to have four starters. That ought to fix things."

"Why don't we just get better pitchers?"

"That's it, Jenkins, you're fired!"

Actually, given how the Rockies never really fire anyone, they just make up new jobs for them to do, that would go more along the lines of:

"That's it, Jenkins, you're now the Director of Grounds Crew Operations!"

When the Rockies are in the playoffs, or at least in the hunt down the stretch, I get pretty superstitious. I don't want to really talk to anyone or move from my seat. But since this game was never really close, I figured I wasn't going to jinx anything by stretching my legs.

I started watching the game above the Rockies' bullpen. A guy next to me was looking over a baseball that had a number of signatures on it.

"That's pretty impressive; did you get all of those signatures here?" I asked.

"Yeah, take a look," he said as he handed me the ball. "I'm actually trying to sell it. Twenty bucks."

"Huh. There's Dexter Fowler, Tulo, Helton ... This might be a pretty cool ball to have." I said.

"I wasn't offering to sell it to you," he said as he grabbed the ball back and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

I decide my legs were amply stretched and headed back to my seat. As I made my way around the concourse, I realized that this little interaction was a perfect metaphor for the Rockies 2012 season. It's as if all of baseball at the beginning of the year collectively said, "Hey, isn't being a baseball fan great! Being a baseball fan is the best, mainly because of how great baseball is! Aren't we all in agreement!"

"Yep! It sure is!" I said to the figurative entity of baseball.

"Oh, well it's not going to be great for you," said baseball.

As the Rockies failed to mount a comeback, and lost 8-3, I bid adieu to Coors Field for 2012.

"So long, Year of the Fan. Next time, I guess I'd just prefer the X-Box."

Or at least let me pitch.

A New Hope: The Broncos 2012 Offseason

2012-05-11T16:17:16Z

A New Hope: The Broncos 2012 Offseason

So I know I don't post here a lot, but I wrote a column for SB Nation Denver about the Broncos' offseason, and how the NFL Draft is like Star Wars.

Just Gonna leave this here...

A New Hope: The Denver Broncos' 2012 Offseason

2012-05-10T14:11:54Z

After what John Elway described as "a very productive meeting," Brian Xanders is out as the Denver Broncos' general manager. I was trying to picture what a productive meeting in which one person loses their job would actually look like. What I imagined was the scene from Office Space where the consultants, The Bobs, were interviewing the high-strung guy.

John Elway: "So you decide who we're going to take in the draft?"

Brian Xanders: "Well, no, you and John Fox do that. But then I tell Roger Goodell..."

Elway: "Do you make the free agent decisions?"

Xanders: "No, I mean, you were the one who got Peyton Manning here--"

Elway: "What would you say ... you do here?"

I can't say I'm necessarily surprised that Xanders is gone, in reading both his and Elway's post-draft remarks I got the feeling that Xanders was being kept out of the loop a little on personnel decisions. Elway spoke at length regarding the players drafted and the Broncos' strategy for trading picks they way they did. Xanders' comments can basically be summarized as, "The draft is when you pick players who weren't on your football team to play on your football team for the next season, which starts in September."

The Broncos won their first division title and playoff game in six years last year, so naturally that means it's time to swap out the quarterback and general manager. To be fair, Peyton Manning isn't available most offseasons. Listen, I love Tim Tebow's drive and those comeback wins last year were a lot of fun. But going from Tim Tebow to Peyton Manning is like going from the Little Engine That Could to, well, Peyton Manning.

It's not a move that isn't completely without risk: Manning is coming off a missed season due to neck surgery. John Fox said he talked with Manning when they were watching him work out and he asked, "Will you be 100% when the season starts?" Manning said absolutely, he would. Which is all well and good, but I kind of feel like Manning's doctor had the best opinion on that matter.

So the Broncos made their biggest offseason move even before the draft started. Speaking of the draft:

Remember that scene in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker and his uncle Owen meet the Jawas to see what droids they want to get? That scene is essentially what the NFL Draft is. The teams take a look at what's available and consider what needs they have to fill: "We need a linebacker who can play in a 3-4 defense" really isn't any different from when Uncle Owen said, "I need a droid that understands the binary language of moisture vaporators." Then they make their selection and tell the little guy who, for some reason, makes noises like a Chihuahua. (OK, the comparison isn't 100 percent accurate, but still.)

I would actually watch the NFL Draft if it took on this theme every year, with all of the draft eligible players brought in on a huge Jawa sandcrawler and all the GMs wore tunics like Luke's.

They wouldn't even have to always do the Star Wars theme. They could have a lot of fun with rotating different themes. Maybe one year they could do "Let's Make a Deal" where Roger Goodell would say "Alright Colts, you can take Andrew Luck, and he might be great. Or, in my pocket I have three crisp hundred dollar bills that you can have right now." Sure, a lot of people think Andrew Luck is the next great NFL quarterback, but $300 is $300.

One strange thing about the draft is all of the articles leading up to it. Several of these are counting down "The Ten Biggest Draft Busts of All Time" (Should've taken the $300) or conversely, the "Ten Best Undrafted Players of All Time." Look, I understand the need to fill column inches but when trying to build hype, it's a little odd to write articles where you basically say, "You know that thing we keep telling you is super duper important? Well here are some reasons why maybe it isn't so important after all."

Then at the end of the draft you see a bunch of articles passing out draft "grades." I know you need to sum up how each team did in filling their needs, but handing out grades after the draft is pretty much like your high school giving you a report card immediately after you registered for your classes.

And don't get me started on the fans that actually attend the draft. I have no idea what compels people to say, "I can't wait to be there to see who my team picks and watch him ... put on a hat."

Anyway, long story short, I don't pay a whole ton of attention to the NFL Draft. But enough people have asked me how I think the Broncos did, so let me give you a quick rundown of who the Broncos picked, and what their value to the team might be. Fair warning, I don't know a lot of anything:

Derek Wolfe, Defensive Tackle:

Pros: Excellent interior pass rusher who will take pressure off of the already strong pass rushers the Broncos have on the outside of the line.

Cons: May be a bit undersized to be a top-level run-stopper; doesn't understand the binary language of moisture vaporators.

Brock Osweiler, Quarterback:

Pros: Very good arm strength; has all the physical tools to be a top level NFL quarterback.

Cons: Mechanical flaws will take some work to correct; doesn't understand the binary language of moisture vaporators.

Ronnie Hillman, Running Back:

Pros: Very fast, excellent open field running capability.

Cons: Lacks the size necessary to be an effective interior runner; doesn't understand the binary language of moisture vaporators.

Omar Bolden, Cornerback:

Pros: Superb cover corner; has the ability to be a shutdown corner.

Cons: Coming off of a serious knee injury; thinks the moisture vaporators joke is pretty well run into the ground by now.

Philip Blake, Offensive Lineman:

Pros: Thinks Omar Bolden is wrong, and that the moisture vaporators joke is still going strong.

Cons: I really can't think of any.

Malik Jackson, Defensive Lineman:

Pros: Has the design plans of a lethal space station stored in his memory.

Cons: Hardheaded; prone to wandering off.

Danny Trevathan, Linebacker:

Pros: Understands the binary language of moisture vaporators.

Cons: Is so stinking pompous about it that no one wants to listen to him.

Derek Wolfe was the first player the Broncos picked. However, they had traded away their first round pick for more picks later. Whenever a team trades down in the draft I wonder if it makes for an awkward first meeting.

Elway: "Hey Derek, great to meet you. We're so excited to have you join our team!"

Derek Wolfe: "Well if you were really so excited why did you trade out of the first round before picking me?"

Elway: "Hey, have you met Peyton Manning yet?"

One last change of note the Broncos made this offseason: Each player will receive an iPad in which the entire playbook is stored. Which sounds pretty cool. It will also mean that most of the offensive formations will look like various levels of Angry Birds.

I think that was the impetus behind the Broncos signing Peyton Manning and trading Tim Tebow. Elway was studying the playbook and said, "You know, Tebow is like the red bird. He just goes straight at the pigs and can't do anything else. Sure, sometimes you get the perfect shot with him and you get lucky, but most of the time he just knocks into things and falls over. Peyton Manning is like every other bird. Sometimes his passes go really fast. Sometimes they split into three smaller balls and all the receivers catch them. And sometimes his passes explode and blow up all the pigs."

Then Xanders came in and said, "Everything alright, John?"

Elway said "Yeah, everything's great. We still on for that meeting the week after the draft? It will be very productive."

So how would I rate the Broncos offseason? I give it a 1. Which doesn't sound like much, but in the binary language of moisture vaporators, it's actually really good.

Colorado Mammoth Lacrosse -- Hold On To Something

2012-03-28T12:00:29Z

Last July I wrote about my first lacrosse experience at a Denver Outlaws game. Afterward, I got an email from a friend who said "We have season tickets to the [Colorado] Mammoth, the indoor lacrosse team. You should come sometime." So I decided to round out my lacrosse education by hitting up the indoor game. And many of you are thinking, "Mike, you're writing about lacrosse again? Does this mean you're running out of sports to write about?" To which I reply, "Shut up."

When I went to the Outlaws' game, it was the Fourth of July and the crux of my hard-hitting journalistic investigation was to examine just how American the game of lacrosse was. Well, the National Lacrosse League took the outdoor sport and Americanized the bejeezus out of it. Swear to God, there is a hot tub full of women in bikinis for no reason whatsoever. I'm pretty sure that's what Lee Greenwood had in mind when he wrote that song.

More Mike Sjerven: Avalanche Vs. Canucks: Antipathy of a Rivalry

Walking in to the Pepsi Center, I was a little bit nervous because I noticed a number of fans carrying vuvuzelas and cowbells, two-thirds of The Most Annoying Noisemakers in Sports Triumvirate. And air horns are easily hidden in purses or coat pockets, so chances are there were a few of those too. This didn't bode well. However, I needn't have worried. Any noise these paltry things could possibly make was soon drowned out.

If Gene Simmons from KISS ever saw the pregame festivities of a Colorado Mammoth game, I'm sure he'd say "Come on guys, show a little restraint." Sure, I was prepared for the highlight video set to loud music, that's industry standard. But do you know what the Avalanche or Nuggets don't have? They don't have a dance team that's brought onto the field on the backs of Harleys. The "Wild Bunch" do their first dance routine before the lacrosse team is even introduced. Then when the Mammoth do take the field, there's so much flame and sparks that I was trying to remember if I'd ever read anything in the news about Astroturf igniting.

The pregame festivities are so unabashedly over-the-top, I was a little disappointed that when the mascot came out it was just a guy in a mammoth suit. I fully expected an actual mammoth to come running out of the tunnel. The University of Colorado has Ralphie, a live buffalo, run across the field before football games, which is cool. But how stinkin' sweet would it be if you had an animal charging across the field that was actually at one time extinct?! An animal that is the closest possible cousin to a dinosaur! (Maybe. I didn't pay real close attention in biology.) I'm pretty sure that if the Mammoth ownership had the means to clone an actual woolly mammoth, they would. Heck, it's probably already in the works now. Then they would strap a harness to him and have him pull out three hot tubs full of hot babes along with a stage with Guns N' Roses playing. And I don't mean the members of Guns N' Roses as they are in 2012, I mean Guns N' Roses from 1992 having been Quantum Leaped into 2012.

The pregame is this amazing and ridiculous blend of cheesy and awesome. I loved it.

The game finally got started after the roadies packed up all of the sound equipment and the dance team was airlifted off of the field. This particular night, the Mammoth were playing (was playing? There were many Mammoth players, but only one Mammoth) the Washington Stealth. Team names are getting lamer in the new millennium. Do you notice how many college teams are named the Tigers? Know why? It's a cool name. The name immediately brings to mind a fierce animal, a powerful force of the jungle. Nobody is ever going to complain if another team names themselves the Tigers. When I think of "stealth," I just picture some of the weirder looking jets the Air Force has turned out. And I guess the only stealth that Washington was going for was jerseys that looked too much like the Mammoth jerseys for a newbie like me.

And perusing the names of the other indoor lacrosse teams, it just gets worse. The Edmonton Rush? Who wants to go watch a team named after the part of the day when traffic is crappiest? The worst one is the Toronto Rock. Someone thought it would be a good idea to name their team after a geological feature. Man, nothing gets me fired up more than thinking about a lump of granite, you know, sitting there. Plus I picture all sorts of dangerous goal celebrations if the fans up there decide the best way to celebrate a goal is to throw something on the field. Seriously, guys. Tigers. Eagles. Bears. Tried and true. Not lame. (Note: My wife just read this and pointed out that the Colorado Rockies and Denver Nuggets are also geological "things." Maybe so. But the Rockies run down the country like a backbone according to Sam Elliot, and gold nuggets are worth a lot of money. My point stands.)

Anyway, when the game got started I leaned over to my friends and asked, "What are the main differences between outdoor and indoor lacrosse?"

"Well for one, the indoor game is a lot faste-GOOOOOAAAAALLL!!!!!"

"Huh. OK, what else?"

"Generally there's more-GOOOOOOOOAAAALLLL!!!"

"You don't say. Anything else I should know?"

"Well the GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLL will get GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLL with the GOOOOOOOAAAALLLLL in the hot tub."

Spoiler alert, the Mammoth won this one 13-11. Having never played lacrosse, it really isn't fair for me to criticize, but I was wondering what constitutes "good" goaltending. I just imagine after a game, all the teammates congratulating each other:

To other teammates: "good game....good game......good game..."

To the goalie: "You ... did some real nice things out there."

Here's a problem that I had with the scoring at NLL games: Yes, there's a lot of it, which is good -- don't get me wrong. But each goal is accompanied with the same enthusiasm as a hockey goal. Everyone jumps to their feet and the music starts up and high fives all around. Sure, when the Avs score and you jump up you might spill a bit of your beer on your shirt but, hey, you're excited and that excitement is worth that ounce of beer or two. But on a good night, the Avs score three or four goals. The Mammoth scored seven goals in the first quarter. That's a lot of jumping up and spilling. Between quarters I wrang out my shirt, got another beer and decided to calm down some.

If lacrosse is going to have that much scoring, I think they need to tone down the goal celebrations just a bit. A proportionate reaction would be somewhere between the Avs scoring a goal and the Nuggets scoring a basket. We don't bust out the Rock N' Roll Part 2 for every layup at a basketball game, do we? Those games would take forever.

I will say this about the scoring though: It makes the vuvuzelas a total non-factor. People only blow them after a goal and you can't hear them over the general crowd noise and music. I suppose the reason that people at the international soccer games make so much noise with them is that there are such long stretches in soccer without any scoring. They just blow on their little plastic trumpets to pass the time. But the Mammoth refuse to give you any idle time. It's all in-your-face all the time. Picture the episode of Itchy & Scratchy when they introduced Poochie -- if they actually all did make it to the fireworks factory.

Baseball is my favorite sport to attend. Baseball fans will say they love the majestic expanse of the green grass, the deliberate pace of a methodical game. There's time to pause and reflect. Well, indoor lacrosse wants nothing to do with any of that. When you go to a NLL game, there's something going on constantly; be it music, dance routines, t-shirt giveaways (sometimes all three of these things are actually just one thing. It makes sense when you're there). A couple of times I found myself thinking, "Can't they just let them play the game? Can't we just enjoy the game for the game's sake?" However, I think that would be missing the point.

I think the whole point of the Mammoth games is the ecstatic overload, the bacchanalian exultance, the......eh, crap, thesaurus.com just went down. Anyway, you get the idea. Nobody at a Mammoth game ever asks, "Are you ready to have fun?" It's more like "OPEN WIDE, HERE COMES THE FUN!" It's like The Hunger Games with less killing and more Mötley Crüe. My advice is to not overthink it. Just enjoy the crap out of it. Trust me, you'll have a good time. At least until they finish up that mammoth cloning. Then it'll probably be pretty dangerous.

Avalanche Vs. Canucks: Antipathy Of A Rivalry

2012-02-17T22:14:40Z

I’m generally a pretty optimistic sports fan. I still believe the Avalanche is going to win the Stanley Cup this year and the Rockies are probably going to go 162-0. A year from now we’ll still be celebrating the Broncos’ Super Bowl victory while the Nuggets are defending their NBA championship that was amazingly won with only three players after injuries decimated the roster. And to me, that optimism is what is fun about being a sports fan. But on Feb. 4, the day before the Super Bowl, I woke up feeling grim. The Vancouver Canucks were in town to play the Colorado Avalanche and I was going to the game. The Canucks/Avalanche rivalry fills me with dread and shakes me to my very core.

Here’s an interesting note: I’m writing this on Feb. 15, as the Avalanche and Canucks play in Vancouver. So this ought to be an interesting exercise. Vancouver scored in the first 16 seconds ... yeah.

But back on Feb. 4, as I shoveled the 15 inches of snow from my driveway (seriously, was whoever is in charge of making it winter in Denver completely slacking off for the first few months? Then when February hit he said "OH MAN! I COMPLETELY FORGOT!" and then dumped all of the snow and all of the cold all at once), I thought about why the rivalry with Vancouver gives my sports fandom such an existential crisis. Mainly because of two numbers: 3 and 13. Over the past three years, the Avalanche have won three and lost 13 against the Canucks (The latest game was, um, not a good result).

Most Avalanche fans will say that the big rivalry is with the Detroit Red Wings. And they aren’t really wrong. Those games in the late 90’s and early 00’s were some epic battles between two elite teams. And who can forget the time Darren McCarty drowned all of those kittens in Cherry Creek? (I might be making that up.) But the now rosters are completely different from when Patrick Roy and Mike Vernon fought at center ice. The bad blood has cooled and the two teams haven’t met in the playoffs in a number of years.

But the Avs and Canucks are division rivals who play six times a year. Over the years, there has been some good hockey and there have been some extremely ugly incidents. But the results have just been crap of late.

The 13 losses include an 8-2 pounding and a 6-0 embarrassment. I was at the game that ended 8-2, back in Nov. 2009. I should have known it was going to be an unpleasant night going in. I found what I thought was a great deal for tickets on Craigslist. I paid the guy via Paypal but an error said to enter the payment again. Then the charge showed up in my account twice. The guy on Craigslist who had been super friendly during the negotiation process suddenly stopped responding to all phone calls and emails once he got twice his asking price. I called Paypal customer service, and without turning this into an episode of that show Outsourced (IMDB it), yes, customer service was in India. After a difficult conversation the guy on the other end said in perfect English "I don’t know why you want to go to this game anyway, the Avs are going to get crushed." Then, during the game, I decided to enjoy my first beer in weeks as I had been on some medicine that necessitated abstaining from alcohol. As the game turned south, that beer turned into, um, many.

So to recap that game, I got charged twice for my tickets, my team got slammed by a guy on a different continent, and I had a brutal hangover the next day. You may be saying that none of those things can really be blamed on the Canucks, but you’d be wrong. Just the fact that the Sedin twins are in town causes all sorts of crappy ions to be in the air or something.

But still, I go to the games when Vancouver is in town, and I watch the away games on TV. But I don’t really look forward to them: I basically watch in the same frame of mind I had when I watched the last couple seasons of Lost. Yes, it is just getting silly, and no, I don’t expect it to end well. I constantly find myself asking "who’s that guy again?" but good lord, at this point I’m invested. So what does that say about the Vancouver Canucks? They have robbed me of my sports optimism. I watch the games with this sense of foreboding, always expecting the worst. The Canucks cause me to doubt my sense of self and greater purpose in life. It was Roberto Luongo who called me as a young boy and told me there was no Santa Claus. Who does that? Bunch of jerks.

As I walked towards the Pepsi Center for the 1 p.m. game, I noticed how amazing the new snow looked on the mountains against the clear blue sky. I marveled at how stupid Coors Light is for having the mountains turn blue on their bottles when they’re cold when really it would make more sense if the mountains turned white, you know, um, the color of snow. And I lamented the fact that the blizzard hadn’t shut down the airport and prevented the Canucks from making it into town.

Jake Schroeder sang the anthems and the game started, then Vancouver scored. Or maybe Vancouver scored and then the game started; honestly it’s hard to tell any more. What’s strange is that all of the in-game entertainment is the same when the Canucks are in town. They did the Pepsi Bottle Cap Shuffle and the Hi-Lo Jersey Number game. Which I guess is nice, pretending everything is normal conveys a sense of assurance that this was a game like any other and nothing should be read too much into what fate might have in store. If I were in charge of the entertainment when the Canucks were in town the little games for fans during breaks would take on a darker tone: "For an autographed Avalanche jersey, answer this: ‘Does man really have free will?’" I’m guessing that might lead to complaints from some families.

But this game started to look good. About halfway through the first period, David Jones tied the game up. Then in the second, Jay McClement scored a pretty goal and the Avs took the lead. They held that lead into the third period. There was a glimmer of hope in my cold dark heart. (Cue Charlie Brown running) Time ticked down to just more than a minute, Luongo was pulled for the extra attacker. The Avs had a couple of chances at the empty net but weren’t able to put it home (Charlie Brown lines up the kick). Then a clearing attempt by the Avs was intercepted, and the puck ended up on the stick of Kevin Bieksa, who has averaged just fewer than six goals a year over seven seasons, naturally the person who you would expect to rip a laser right by Jean-Sebastien Giguere. (Lucy pulls the football away, Charlie Brown flies through the air and lands on his back, looking up at the sky and wondering why he even bothered). The game was tied with 34 seconds left.

Overtime yielded no goals, so the game was going to be decided in a shootout. This was the first shootout I had ever witnessed live, and ordinarily I would have been pumped. But given the letdown of the game being tied up with 34 seconds left or just the general fear of what the gods had in store, I was less than thrilled.

When you are in the building for the shootout it really seems to go by quickly. Avs missed, Canucks missed. Avs missed, Canucks scored. Aaaaaaand Avs missed. It was over. Canucks had won again. An optimistic person might have said "well at least the Avs got a point in the standings." I might have said that if it was any other team. But no. It was all yanked away again. The gods cackled in delight as the Sedin twins signed the contract to have a children’s playground bulldozed and replaced with a raw sewage plant. It’s a cold, dark world.

At least I’ll feel better this June, when Colorado wins the Stanley Cup. As long as the Canucks get knocked out in the first round.

How To Fix The NBA (But Not Really)

2012-01-12T17:08:16Z

Of the four major professional sports leagues, (NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA) the NBA is my least favorite. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate it (Although I do hate their trophy). It's just that one of them had to come in last (I don't subscribe to that whole "we love our children the same" school of parenting. We know who the favorites are). I can still enjoy going to a Denver Nuggets game and sitting at the bar watching a game with friend can be fun -- unless that friend is a Lakers fan. Then it's unbearable. Anyway, left to my own devices, I don't watch a whole bunch of NBA basketball.

So when the lockout threatened to cancel the entire NBA season, I felt pretty much the same way I would feel if they decided to cancel Pawn Stars. Sure, I'd watch it if it was on, but it's not like I was going to lose any sleep over it if it wasn't. Incidentally, the NBA owners would have made out way better if they had Rick from Pawn Stars doing their negotiating. "You want 51 percent of basketball-related income? Uh, the best I can do is five."

But level heads prevailed and the NBA started their season on Christmas Day. Still, the lockout left some bad feelings among the more casual fans and NBA needs to make some amends. So as a late Christmas present to all of you, I'm going to make my 100% unscientific suggestions to the league that will keep the game pretty well intact for the die-hard fans but will improve upon the things that bother me and other casual fans. I have two small suggestions and one major change that I think everyone can accept to ensure the enjoyment of NBA basketball for years.

Change No. 1: Shot clock will be cut down to 10 seconds for the last two minutes of the first three quarters. What would that accomplish? That would effectively put an end to the practice of playing for the last shot in any quarter but the last. Look, the NBA game is 48 minutes long, 12 minutes shorter than a hockey or football game. Now you're going to stand around for 15 seconds to run some of that precious time off? I probably wouldn't be annoyed if they didn't call it "playing for the last shot" and just called it what it was: Taking a li'l break. "Nene gets the rebound with 18 seconds left in the half, passes it off to Lawson. Lawson's gonna take a li'l break." Look, I've punched a time clock enough in my life to know that the last little bit of time before a break or going home generally isn't the most productive. When I worked at Taco Bell in high school, the last 15 minutes of my shifts were spent making sure a two square foot section of the counter was spotless. But no one paid to see me work at Taco Bell. Let's play all the way to the horn, boys.

I have never heard a legitimate reason for playing for the last shot in any quarter but the last. Someone told me the idea was to limit the number of possessions for your opponent. But if it comes at the expense of limiting good possessions for your team, then what's the point? Every time I see a team stall for the last shot, I fool myself into getting excited. "Here we go," I say. "Nuggets are going to hit an open shot right at the buzzer and carry all the momentum into the next quarter." And, shame on me, no one does anything until about four seconds are left and all they can come up with is an off balance three-pointer. Speaking of which:

Change No. 2: Move the three-point line up. Or back. Or leave it the same, I'm not sure. OK, to be fair this is not so much a suggestion as a gripe. What I do know is that there is nothing more exciting in a basketball game than when a team is down by 10 but has a shooter get hot from the three-point line. The deficit turns into a lead in a matter of minutes. On the flip side, nothing is more boring than when an offense is doing nothing creative whatsoever and just clanging one three-point attempt after another off the rim. So do something that fixes this to keep the excitement but lose the boring stuff. Maybe make a rule that if you are going to take a three-point shot, you have to make it. Or if you miss two in a row, you have to score six points from inside the arc before you can try again. Let's brainstorm this because I think I'm on to something.

Change No. 3 (the biggie): Get rid of all of the officials and let the players police the game themselves. Sweet Fancy Mary, I would love it if they gave every NBA ref a pink slip. I would become the biggest NBA fan overnight. Listen, the NBA officials are an oft maligned group. A Google search of "bad NBA refs" brings back some of the most prolific non-pornographic results lists I've seen. I read several articles , and NBA Commissioner David Stern's defense is generally along the lines of "Well, if you didn't complain about the officiating so much it wouldn't seem so bad," which proves that Stern is on some highly enlightened metaphysical plane that I can only dream of attaining

I know an umpire's strike zone can resemble an amorphous blob and pass interference in football is a crapshoot. But baseball needs someone to call balls and strikes quickly and football needs officials to keep track of all of the many many many rules. As far as hockey goes, when you put a bunch of very competitive people on a slippery surface with sticks in their hands and knives on their feet, it's probably a good idea to have someone keeping the peace.

But basketball is the one team sport that would be virtually unchanged without refs. If contact made you alter your shot, call a foul. If not, play on.

"Excuse me, Mr. Howard?"

"Yes Mr. James?"

"Well, I was shooting this basketball, but when your elbow collided with my eye I was unable to score."

"Aren't I quite the boob, Mr. James!? How do you suggest we remedy this faux pas?"

"Well, what if I were able to shoot twice from this line while you stood at a respectable distance?"

"I find your solution gentlemanly and fair."

Hairy calls would be figured out by a quick powwow between coaches. If a ball goes out and it's tough to tell who gets possession, roshambo.

Removing the officials from the NBA would instantly fix several issues I have. For starters, flopping would go away. Well, it might still happen but there wouldn't be any fouls called for it. Sorry, Manu Ginobili, but you gotta go. If Chris Paul is like the Slinky in the commercial, beautifully gliding its way down stair after stair, then Manu Ginobili is the Slinky you actually get, that slinks down one stair like it's supposed to before tumbling and twisting its way down and coming to a rest stretched out at the bottom of the stairs. Did that Slinky earn a trip to the free throw line? I think not.

Another thing I can't stand: the head fake to draw the foul. And I am going to catch flack for this but Denver hero Chauncey Billups is a pretty bad offender on this one. Guy with the ball head fakes to get the defender off his feet, then jumps into him while throwing up a lame duck that would make Tim Tebow blush, all in the name of earning a trip to the free throw line. If no one were around to call a foul, defender says, "Dude, that's lame." Shooter says, "Yeah, you're right. You guys take the ball."

I actually did a little statistical analysis for this essay and pulled a hammy, which is why this took me a little longer to write. But in two randomly selected Nuggets games from last year, about 20 percent of the total points were scored from free throws. Small sample size, maybe, but 20 percent of points being scored when the game is at a dead stop is too much.

Don't even get me started on technical fouls. They have become so common that they have lost all meaning as a way to deter unsportsmanlike behavior. Essentially technical fouls are the "NO, YOU SHUT UP!!!!" of professional sports officiating.

I explained my idea to a die-hard NBA fan friend of mine.

"Would never work," he said. "The game would just get rougher and rougher until it resembled 'Power Ball' on those American Gladiators shows from the 90s."

Well that would be pretty awesome too.

Denver Broncos Half Price Tickets: You'll Pay For Half Your Seat, But You'll Use, Well, All Of It

2011-11-25T12:00:25Z

I recently learned that the Denver Broncos make a limited number of tickets to all home games available for half price. As soon as I heard this I hopped right online to snag four. Well, four weren’t available, so three. No, three weren’t available either. Two? Nope. One? Yes indeed. So basically there are about 2,000 tickets available for half price for each game, but they are all singles.

Now I go to many Rockies games solo. I love to get to Coors Field early and relax while watching the grounds crew put the finishing touches on the field before the game starts. Then I spend a few innings walking around to different parts of the park and watching from all the different vantage points before picking a seat in a sparsely populated section to finish out the game. I figured the Broncos experience could be fun by myself as well ,so I decided I was going to take in the Broncos vs. Lions game on the cheap.

I was a little apprehensive about the half price ticket process. I had never talked to anyone who had taken advantage of this deal before so I was naturally skeptical. As I made my way to my seat I was picturing sitting on a miniature folding chair directly behind a brick wall, only able to view a corner of one end zone. I was quite relieved that in fact a half price ticket entitles you to a full size seat with a good view of the field and everything. Emboldened, I struck out to find what other benefits might be had for half price.

"Seven fifty" said the beer man. I plopped down $3.75.

"What’s this?" he asked.

"I have a half price ticket."

He dumped half of the beer on the ground and handed me the cup.

Touche, beer man. Touche.

I have read a number of articles in recent years saying that the NFL has a problem because the viewing experience from home is so much better than actually being at the game. It's is a weird thing to give the league flak for. If I understand the point correctly, it’s somehow bad for the NFL to cater to millions and millions of people instead of just 70,000. Yep, I can see how that business model is dumb. Some people are worried that the crowd for NFL games is going to get smaller and smaller to where attendance is pretty insignificant. To which I say: so what? The Cosby Show was taped in front of an audience, but it was clear that the real draw was the TV viewers, and the Huxtables had a pretty sweet run. Even if we get to the point where we are reminded each week when Theo comes on and says, "The Broncos were taped before a live stadium audience," I don’t think the product is going to suffer at all.

Really there are a number of arguments both for attending a game in person as well as watching on TV. I do know a number of people who go to NFL games often but also watch quite a few on TV. And one point they make is that they like to be able to watch the replays on TV if a call is being challenged. And that’s a fair claim. Here’s my counterpoint: color commentators.

Sure you get to see the replay from every possible camera angle at home but you have to listen to Dan Dierdorf ramble incoherently while you are watching them. "The rule is very clear on this…" an announcer is often heard to say, right before expounding on a rule that is in actuality extremely vague. "The rule is very clear on this: in order for that to be a catch, he has to make a ‘football move.’" Well what’s a football move? Apparently falling down is not a football move, even though people fall down in football all the time. What does count as a football move is running, although I hardly think football has the market cornered as far as sports with running in them. It would be clearer to just say, "You have to catch it, and, you know, hold onto it for a sec." NFL Rules Committee, I’m available to punch up your book a bit.

NFL commentators have eroded my understanding of what it means to catch something so completely that recently my wife asked if I wanted to catch a movie and I ran out of the house screaming, "Two feet plus possession!" Two hours later, I was naked in the middle of Colfax Avenue with horns blaring all around me. Someone who looked a lot like John Elway took pity on me and tossed me the keys to a brand new Mercedes and said, "Get yourself home, you need this more than I do." Unfortunately I was unable to complete the process of the catch and the keys fell into the sewer.

I don’t mean to pick on Dierdorf but you could teach algebraic concepts on some of the stuff he says. If you have a child struggling in math, sit them down in front of the TV next time Dan Dierdorf is analyzing a play under review. If you plot how confident he sounds on the x-axis and just how wrong he ends up being on the y-axis, your little boy or girl is going to be graphing perfect 45 degree lines in no time.

Maybe I went a little overboard in making my point. In short, it’s kind of nice being at the game when a play is under review. You eat a few pistachios, drink some of your beverage, and then the ref makes the call and everyone moves on. If he completely blows it, the fans at the game really don’t know because we haven’t watched it in hi-def 23 times. We just have to live by the decision he made. Blindly accepting what someone else says isn’t necessarily the American way, but it sure is better for the blood pressure.

Anyhow, part of what’s kind of a bummer about Sports Authority Field at Mile High is that there really isn’t anywhere to walk to so you can stand and watch the game. And it isn’t as if you are going to sneak into some other section with a bunch of empty seats. Obviously it speaks to the Broncos popularity that even with no playoff appearances in five years, all the seats are full. So basically I had to stick to my seat with that "All By Myself" song playing in my head. And I really wanted to write a column about how social boundaries melt away when you are in a crowd with everyone cheering the team on to victory.

However, this was the Broncos-Lions game. As of this writing, the Broncos are 4-1 with Tim Tebow as the starting quarterback. This was that one loss. A very painful loss. Lance Ball had a 35 yard run in the first quarter, a touchdown pass that was challenged and ruled incomplete (which the ref totally got wrong because he’s a fascist), followed by a field goal. And that pretty much wrapped it up for the cheering. And it’s not like you go nuts cheering for a field goal. If a touchdown can make you jump up out of your seat and high five a stranger, a field goal is likely to only generate an appreciative nod with a stranger.

There were two things about this particular game that were pretty shocking: the sheer number of Lions fans and just how vocal the Lions fans were. OK, maybe not surprised at how vocal they were. After years and years of crappy football, Detroit fans are allowed to blow off some steam. But there were quite a few that were downright cocky. I guess I imagined that most Lions fans would need a refresher on the rules, and envisioned myself instructing some eager student of the game that we don’t really refer to a field goal as a "three-pointer." After a Lions touchdown a man in a Barry Sanders jersey stood up and yelled "Lions Rule!" That was when I knew we had entered some alternate fantasy universe.

This game would have none of Tebow’s late heroics. None of that "stink for 55 minutes, then play awesome for 5." He was pretty bad for all 60 minutes, silencing the critics that said he was inconsistent. The game ended and I made my way down to guest services to voice my displeasure.

"What is your complaint?" I was asked.

"Well, if you plot how much I paid for my ticket on the x-axis, and how much I enjoyed the game on the y-axis, I think you will see I should get half my money back."

The guest relations representative shushed me and pointed to a sign behind him: "Dierdorf Math will not get you a refund."

Touche, Broncos. Touche.

UFC And Me: Well, I Gave It A Shot

2011-10-25T13:24:20Z

Over the past few months, I have tried to expand my sports fan horizons. I enjoyed the up-and-down action of lacrosse and the calculated strategy of soccer. But those were sports that I had, at least, a working knowledge of going in. This month, I decided it was time to expose myself … wait ... it was time to acquaint myself with a sport for which millions of fans across the country were already on board, but had pretty much passed me by. It was time to experience the octagonal goodness that is Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Now the mixed martial arts fighting in UFC is a divisive sport: some love it and some hate it. What’s interesting is that the arguments from each side are exactly the same. Allow me to demonstrate. Here is a conversation I had with a friend who is on the record as hating UFC:

Me: "What don’t you like about it?"

Him (with a dismissive shrug): "It’s just two people beating the crap out of each other."

Now let’s jump to a conversation I recently had with a UFC enthusiast:

Me: "What is it about UFC fighting you like?"

Him: IT’S JUST TWO PEOPLE BEATING THE CRAP OUT OF EACH OTHER!!!!"

Here’s a warning: people who watch a lot of ultimate fighting get excited easily and one of their favorite things to do is to demonstrate their favorite techniques. And when the fans I know want to show me what happened, they always get to be the demonstrator while I tend to be the demonstratee. Hardly fair.

There was recently a UFC event held right here in Denver, and unfortunately, I had to miss this. So for my UFC introduction I decided the second best way to experience the excitement was at a local watering hole that was showing the fights. I kind of expected to stroll in about 20 minutes before the fights were supposed to start and grab a prime spot. Not so. This place was jammed with fans thirsty for blood and Coors Light.

As a UFC newbie I chatted with a couple fans around me who seemed more knowledgeable about the sport. And, I will save you this embarrassment; the number "136" attached to UFC 136 does not mean that this is the 136th annual UFC fight. No, the UFC did not get its start in post-Civil War America. Also, you aren’t going to win any friends by pointing out that the "Ultimate" in UFC doesn’t really mean "ultimate" at all if they’re having two of these things a month. I did enjoy the extra space at the bar after pointing out this fact, though.

On to the fights. In the first fight, a nice fellow named Joe Lauzon defeated a young man by the name of Melvin Guillard in 47 seconds. Lauzon’s victory was one by submission, as Guillard "tapped out." "Submission" and "tap out" are really nice terms for what actually happened. What actually happened was Lauzon was choking Guillard pretty good, and Guillard decided "well, this dude is choking me something awful, and right now my choices are A) die; or B) maybe say I’ve had enough for this evening." So indeed, Guillard decided he was done for this particular fight. Quitter.

Here is what I found interesting about the first fight. Before the fight, Lauzon was quiet and stoic. Guillard came in cocky, playing to the crowd and with an entourage pumping him up. He played the part of the arrogant jerk you want to see get his clock cleaned, and that is exactly what happened. And that happened a couple of other times in the night, where the fighter who calmly walked into the octagon (scientifically proven to be the most combative of all the shapes) and stood ready to battle soundly defeated the fighter who came in cocky, jumping around and pumping himself up. And all I could think of when this was happening was, "Haven’t any of these dudes seen Rocky IV?" Apollo Creed came into the ring with a choreographed dance number to a James Brown tune while Ivan Drago stood there like a statue. And what happened? Drago killed Creed. And not "killed" as in "soundly defeated," killed as in killed dead. If UFC fighters and their trainers can’t learn a lesson from a renowned acting coach like Carl Weathers on how to behave pre-fight then they deserve the beating that is coming to them.

Anyway, it’s way scarier that the calm fighters tend to be better. If someone is bouncing all over the place kind of making a fool of himself, that’s just his way of pumping himself up for what he’s about to do, which is beat someone about the head and body. Compare that to a guy who just stands there as if he’s not sure why he’s even in the arena:

"What am I here for again?"

"Go choke that guy."

"Yeah, OK."

See what I mean? Those guys don’t even really need a reason to throw down a butt whupping.

Only two of the five fights went to a judges’ decision, which is good in my mind. I don’t like judges determining the outcome of any sport, be it a fight like this or something more technical like diving. If I were a judge for a fight like this I would score any round in which nobody cried a draw.

Here’s another semantic bone to pick: they call UFC fighting "mixed martial arts (MMA)." And when I hear that I tend to picture some Jackie Chan- and Chuck Norris-type stuff mixed with some waxing on and waxing off. I was pretty disappointed on that front. You know how if you mix all of the colors of paint together in a watercolor set you end up with a brownish-gray? Well you kind of get the martial arts equivalent of that when you mix all of them together- a lot of rolling around on the ground with the occasional knee to the face.

And would it kill someone to develop his whole MMA repertoire around Capoeira? That’s the Brazilian martial art where you dance and beat someone senseless at the same time. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go watch "Only the Strong," probably the greatest/silliest martial arts movie ever made. Interesting side note, and I promise I am not making this up: the star of "Only the Strong" will be recognizable to fans of televised cooking as The Chairman who shouts "Allez Cuisine!" before every Iron Chef battle. Oooh! I just thought of a way to make UFC way better: knives!

OK, knives are probably a bad idea, we don’t want anyone to get hurt seriously. It’s bad enough that those dudes’ ears look like cookie dough. But I kind of needed something to spice up my UFC experience because here’s the conclusion I came to, apologies to the millions of fans across the country: UFC is really boring. If pay-per-view tallies and bumper stickers on pickups are any indication, UFC is doing pretty well. But for me, it just fell into a predictable routine: Introductions; fight; interview with Joe Rogan. And the interviews with the fighters were all pretty much the same as well.

"How did you win this fight?"

"Well, my elbow in his groin while punching his face helped. Praise Jesus."

Maybe I would like it more if it was something more like Iron Chef,. Like, if they were given a secret martial art technique and they only found out what it was right before the fight, but then they were only allowed to use that martial art. Or what if they got drunk first? Those post fight hugs would be more believable. Alas, my first UFC experience is most likely going to be my last. I got home and my wife asked if I enjoyed the fights.

"Eh, it was just two people beating the crap out of each other."