Why I flew 8,000 miles to watch Denver win their first championship
26 June 2023
It all happened so fast.
As Lebron James drove to the rim in the dying seconds of game 4 of the Western Conference Finals, looking to tie the game in front of a packed Crypto Arena, Denver guard Jamal Murray shifted off his man to snatch the ball. After bobbling it, Lebron couldn’t quite regain control, unable to get it up on the rim at the buzzer.
Game over. Series over.
The Denver Nuggets, after 47 years of pain and mediocrity, had made the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history.
And there I was, a fully grown man at our office in Melbourne, fist pumping the air and jumping up and down in front of bewildered and amused colleagues. In that moment, sending the Lakers home was worth making an absolute fool of myself and destroying any credibility I might have pretended to have amongst my peers.
The next few minutes felt like a fever dream, followed by an epiphany.
I’ve gotta go to Denver for The Finals. I need to witness this in person.
After a quick look at flights and ticket prices (gulp), an even quicker call to my fiancé for sign off and an emphatic ‘go for it!’ from the basketball loving boss Ned, I jumped online and got booking. I was flying 8,000 miles to Denver in just over a week.
The path to fanatic fan
My journey with the Nuggets began when I was 12, and the reason was simple. It was 2003 and the Nuggets had drafted Carmelo Anthony. He was the coolest player in the league, the underdog to all the bandwagon Lebron James fans, and the Nuggets had these sick powder blue and gold uniforms to boot.
That’s all it takes when you’re an impressionable pre-teen.
Back then it was pretty hard to watch NBA games in Australia. My mate Sam had cable, but the Nuggets didn’t get much burn on ESPN. I checked every box score, watched GameCast’s on ESPN and scoured YouTube for highlight mixes.
I helped run online NBA message boards, didn’t talk about anything else with my high school mates at lunch and bought every edition of Slam magazine each month. Psychologists around the world (and my parents) would call this: addiction.
Fast-forward to 2011 and my hero Carmelo Anthony demanded a trade to the big market New York Knicks. Once the deal was done, it was a straightforward decision for me. I’d become a Nuggets fan, not a Melo man.
We became a star-less, scrappy underdog team that were fun to watch, but never went all that far in the playoffs.
I saw my first Nuggets game live in London when we blew out the Indiana Pacers in 2017. The next was a trip to Denver in 2020, luckily catching the last game (!) before Covid shutdown the season. Like many places, the city was a shell of itself as the anxiety about what was happening reached fever pitch.
And in the last few years building up to my office meltdown right here at the very desk I’m typing at, our ‘built not bought’ team had ascended into title contender and finalist. I never thought I would see it.
A city alight
Coming into Denver airport felt like arriving at a familiar place. A city I had only been to once but was full of ‘my people’. Being an isolated fan on the other side of the world is a lonely existence – nobody to really share the joy and pain.
After dropping my bags, I immediately went to a bar and pulled up a chair. It was the night before game 1 and I could hear the chatter about the game and the atmosphere of excitement in a place that hadn’t had much basketball glory. The Colorado Avalanche had won The Stanley Cup the year before, the Denver Broncos won the Superbowl in 2015. The Rockies and Nuggets had traditionally been the poor cousins, with never much to write home about.
That’s why this felt so different. All the fans had come out of the woodwork, but there was also a level of nervous tension. We’ve never won it before, maybe we’ll choke?
A night at Ball Arena
I just got tickets for game 1 at Ball Arena and my word, downtown was pumping. Bars were bursting, beers were flowing, and everyone was amped. My mate Alex and I went straight for the merchandise store on arrival, buying hats and t-shirts with some random guy in the line giving me a bracelet he made with ‘Jokic’ embroidered on it.
By the time we got to our seats in the nosebleeds, I was lightheaded. That could have been the altitude, but the noise in the venue was like nothing I had ever encountered. I sat next to Michael (middle picture below), a guy who had been a Nuggets fan since he was a kid. He’s been waiting the full 47 years for this.
Every seat had a gold t-shirt on it, bracelets with synced lights lit up the place and the whole crowd was on their feet as the ball was tipped.
Any passionate fan will tell you that something comes over you when you’re with other diehards that makes you borderline possessed. A couple of noisy Miami Heat fans sitting behind me lasted a quarter before vanishing (I swear I barely said anything to them), much to the delight of the surrounding Nuggets contingency. Another battle won.
The Nuggets stormed out of the gates early and didn’t look back, winning game 1 comfortably, my voice shot to pieces. Possibly the best night of my life as we all poured out of the arena onto the streets.
The Raucous Local Bar
Game 2 was a totally different experience. Not quite willing to fork out another small fortune for a second ticket, I went to a place called DNVR bar on East Colfax Avenue. I knew about it because I followed their podcast and live YouTube show for the past few years and felt like I almost knew the guys on there.
Denver is in a unique and difficult position due to an ongoing stalemate between Regional Sports Networks and Cable Providers, meaning that about 50% of Denver natives are blacked out of watching games at home while negotiations are halted.
So, enter the fan built and run DNVR bar that has risen and risen in popularity, not just as a physical place to watch with others, but to hear from expert fans online who record upstairs in the studio above the bar.
We got there 4 hours early, and lucky we did because they were turning people away an hour before the tip. By the time the starting five were being announced, ‘Let’s go Nuggets!’ chants were ringing out in a packed-out bar with everyone shoulder to shoulder.
Because of the tight, enclosed space, the atmosphere was even more intense than the arena. Every shot, you could feel everyone hold their breath. Every turnover, a collective groan. Every made bucket, pandemonium. Possibly one of the most intense sporting experiences you can have.
We went there for both game 2 and 3, meeting so many other fans, eating loads of fried chicken and our fair share of local pale ale. It was sensational.
Reflections
So, here I am sitting in my lounge room, back on Aussie soil watching us clinch game 5 and our first ever championship. I’m on cloud nine, grinning ear to ear and drinking in all the interviews, celebrations and emotions of the players and fans that spilled over.
After such euphoria, reflection follows. How special that was to be a part of history. To say I was there, in the flesh with a community of fans that span so far outside of downtown Denver, is something I’ll always cherish.
That’s the power of sport. It is so embedded in us as fans that we sometimes forget how naturally it binds people from all walks of life. Regardless of who you are or where you’re from, you put on the team colors, and you come together to pour your hearts out as one.
For those of you that don’t understand and think it’s a bit mad, maybe you never will.
But we understand. Everyone who works at EngageRM does and that’s why we take so much pride in our work. We’re a team full of die-hard fans from across the globe, and it’s because of that understanding amongst us that I was able to go and see the team I love create history.
The grandkids will get sick of this story, but I certainly won’t.
Go Nuggets.
