Remember the exhilaration of your first big sporting event? That's the feeling I, recaptured on a recent whirlwind trip to Denver, reliving the excitement alongside NBA giants at a Nuggets game. It's a story that began with a casual chat with Jillian, Denver's do-it-all official scorer, and unfurled into an epic adventure packed with family coordination, light rail confrontations, and courtside adrenaline. You won't want to miss the play-by-play of this nostalgic journey, complete with a taser-defused altercation and the electric anticipation of watching Victor Wembanyama's titanic matchup with Nikola Jokic.
Get ready to step behind the curtain of a Denver Nuggets game day as we explore every nook and cranny of the arena, from the media interview trenches to the scorer's table where Jillian weaves her magic. Special moments abound, including a chance encounter with Adam Maras from DNVR, and the courtside thrill of feeling every dribble and dunk up close. Join me in savoring the high stakes of a nail-biting game, the roar of the crowd, and the poignant reminder to seize life's spontaneous adventures. This is more than just a recap—it's a heartfelt reflection on seizing the moment and the memories we cherish long after the final buzzer.
Remember the exhilaration of your first big sporting event? That's the feeling I, recaptured on a recent whirlwind trip to Denver, reliving the excitement alongside NBA giants at a Nuggets game. It's a story that began with a casual chat with Jillian, Denver's do-it-all official scorer, and unfurled into an epic adventure packed with family coordination, light rail confrontations, and courtside adrenaline. You won't want to miss the play-by-play of this nostalgic journey, complete with a taser-defused altercation and the electric anticipation of watching Victor Wembanyama's titanic matchup with Nikola Jokic.
Get ready to step behind the curtain of a Denver Nuggets game day as we explore every nook and cranny of the arena, from the media interview trenches to the scorer's table where Jillian weaves her magic. Special moments abound, including a chance encounter with Adam Maras from DNVR, and the courtside thrill of feeling every dribble and dunk up close. Join me in savoring the high stakes of a nail-biting game, the roar of the crowd, and the poignant reminder to seize life's spontaneous adventures. This is more than just a recap—it's a heartfelt reflection on seizing the moment and the memories we cherish long after the final buzzer.
All right, everyone, welcome back to Fandom From Afar. This is Brian and I just want to do something a little bit different this week. I wanted to kind of tell you the story of a little adventure that I went on, and it was a short trip out to Denver to see the Nuggets for the first time in years. I think it might have been actually my first game in Denver in about 18 years. I think the last Nuggets game I went to in Denver was when Tracy and I were dating. So it has been a while, but this trip was awesome and it kind of came together through a whole bunch of coincidence, but I just had such a good time I wanted to share it on the podcast. So here we go.
Speaker 1:
So the whole idea for this trip actually started back in November and you may remember I was on that family trip just relaxing in the Keys with all the family, and actually one of my sister's friends came down to hang out with us as well and her name is Jillian and she is awesome. She is actually the official scorer for the Nuggets and the Rockies and I believe she actually works for the Broncos and University of Colorado as well. So she stays busy and gets to see all sorts of good stuff. But her and I were just kind of chatting one evening and I was asking her a million questions, kind of, about how the whole process works, and she threw it out there like, hey, you should come out and I can show you my system before a game sometime. And I was like, oh, of course that would be awesome. So after the Keys trip we kind of texted back and forth trying to find a date, and obviously Jillian is super busy with all of the teams that she works for. But we finally, I think, found a good date this past week for the Nuggets versus Spurs. And so that was really cool because obviously Victor Wimbanyama is just absolutely insane with how good he's been his rookie year and nobody is built like him, and so it was not only a cool chance to go see Jillian set up but also get to see Wemby live, and obviously Wemby versus Jokic is hopefully going to be an awesome matchup for years to come. So we set a date and then I had to kind of get all the logistics set up. Huge shout-out to my wife for making it work here at the home front and then also shout-out to my boss, priscilla, who was super flexible with kind of allowing me to jump on a plane and take a day off and do this, so, um, that this trip would have never happened without them, and so definitely thank you to them, um, for giving me the opportunity to do something just kind of unusual and fun.
Speaker 1:
And so the week of the game um, the game was on Tuesday, so I worked all day Monday and I had booked a flight to fly out to Denver. That was pretty much flying overnight. I was leaving late at night here in Jacksonville and went to Nashville and then arrived in Denver about 12.30. So it was about 2.30 Eastern time, which is what I'm used to, and me, being an old man, I was quite exhausted, but not too bad. My sister and her boyfriend, james, who you might recognize as the two most recent guests here on Fandom From Afar, they were awesome enough to pick me up and take me to my parents' house where I crashed for a couple hours. And then I was working the day of the game on Tuesday morning thought I would crash at my parents' house to have a nice relaxing environment to knock out a few hours of work, and it just so happened they were getting a new door installed, so I had the nice ambient background noise of construction. But it worked out just fine and their door looks awesome. So it was finally game time and Kristen James picked me up again and we end up taking the light rail down to the arena, which was interesting. I'd never really ridden on that before and it's a cool little setup. Obviously it goes right from Lakewood, which is where my parents are living, and takes you right to the arena. It was funny, though they were telling me how the light rail has kind of fallen apart a little bit and maybe there's not enough funding to keep it up, as it once had hoped to be a nice little addition to the city, and I saw that firsthand One of our first stops.
Speaker 1:
A group of, I would say, teenagers, maybe in their 20s, got on and it looked like maybe a little drug deal went down and one of them was not happy with the change they were given, and so they got into a big old fight. And then a young couple behind us they were ready to go. They jumped right in to try and break up the fight. A whole bunch of yelling, and then one of the girls pulled out a taser and that kind of broke everybody up. So quite an interesting start to the game day journey.
Speaker 1:
But we got dropped off at the stadium. We left pretty early because we wanted to grab a drink before the game and so we went over to a bar my sister knew and it was pretty cool, like really cool environment that they had a bunch of TVs and we're just kind of watching some sports. You can even bet on some horse racing there and didn't win any money, but had fun watching some horse races. And so we went over to the stadium to meet up with Jillian and also my sister's friend, amy, who happens to be a Spurs fan. So we let her sit with us, even though she's a Spurs fan, only because Amy is one of the coolest people in the world and she's just so nice. And I think it's actually pretty cool that she became a Spurs fan because she was a Tim Duncan fan when she was younger and is just kind of stuck with them. So I like the loyalty.
Speaker 1:
But we met Jillian outside and she kind of took us in uh through kind of an employee entrance and we got our badges and uh kind of walked through the back hallway and then all of a sudden we went through a door and we were kind of right there in um, I guess call it the main back hallway, right by where the locker room is and the media lounge and everything, and so Jillian gave us this really cool tour that I guess I wasn't expecting. I didn't know how much access we would have, but it was so cool. Yeah, to start out, we got to go not into the locker room but near the locker room entrance and right there they have a really cool cabinet built with the championship trophy that obviously the Nuggets won last year and it's really well lit and just looks. It's really cool and obviously you guys have heard me a million times on this podcast. Just I'm still riding high. I can't believe the Nuggets are the defending champions. So it was just really cool to see the trophy and just how much pride the Nuggets are taking in displaying that trophy for the players to walk by it every single game, every time they're coming and going from that locker room, just to remind them that they did something special last year and that they're the champs. So that would have been enough alone. I loved seeing the trophy, but we went over to the media lounge and it was just kind of cool because I recognized some of the faces of guys that I either see on the YouTube or blogs or read their articles or all those people that have been helping me follow the team were there.
Speaker 1:
I got to say hi to one of my favorite media personalities, adam Maras from DNBR. He kind of runs the Nuggets coverage for DNBR but he also does a really great podcast with Tim Legler where they talk about the league in general. So it was really cool to say hi to him. And then the press conference area where the media interviews all the players and everything was empty. So we hopped up there and just kind of took some pictures of us acting like we were getting interviewed for a post-game press conference and everything. So that was kind of fun.
Speaker 1:
And then we headed out to the court and it's obviously a really cool environment just to be down there. In general, like everything, I'm used to the seats way up in the nosebleed section, but it was cool to be down the court side and it's pretty tight, like they pack people in their court side. And the hope for the trip was that I could possibly sit with Jillian while she did it so she could kind of show me everything in action, but it didn't work out that night. All the seats were taken, but it was really cool to get the run down before the game.
Speaker 1:
So just to give you a quick idea, there's three monitors or sorry, two monitors at the table and also a phone, and so the way there's three people working the scores table I'll just call it seat number one on the first screen kind of sees the play and then hits a dot where the play happened on the screen and the player that um, did the action. So like, let's say, jokic took a shot from, uh, let's just say, the elbow, and so they would put Jokic and exactly where he shot it from and maybe even put like jump shot or or or something like that, and then pass that information, it goes to the second screen or something like that, and then, past that information, it goes to the second screen and I think that second screen person kind of adds some detail as far as if it was a hook shot, if it obviously, if it went in, or anything like that. So it's very much like a team effort to get all that data input. And then I mentioned they have that phone on there. They can actually call the home office in New Jersey if they have any questions, I think about a play, or the home office might call them to say, hey, let's take another look at this play. I don't think it was a block or I don't think it was a three-pointer or something like that. So it really seems like it's a team effort and it takes a lot of communication. It would be cool to see it in action sometime during the game. But I really appreciate Jillian and her boss Um, I think they were all there kind of helping explain it to me and uh, it was just really cool Like uh, just to kind of see the behind the scenes stuff of of what they do, and obviously I follow all that stuff while the game is going on when I'm sitting at home. So it's just really cool to kind of see how they do it and all the work that it takes to go into it. So I loved that part. I thought that was so interesting. Obviously, being in the stadium, it was awesome to see the championship banner hanging in the rafters. It really was one of the coolest sports moments I've had on opening night when they unveiled the banner and then gave the guys the rings and watching Jokic, with tears in his eyes, kind of playing with his ring, watching that banner raise up, like it was just so cool to see how much he appreciated and just how much it meant to him. Cause obviously the people that try and take Jokic's reputation down say that he doesn't care about basketball and that, uh, he is just doing it for the money or just because he's tall or whatever, like they. They just want to like try and take him down, but he obviously loves it and, um, the banner was a big part of that moment for him and it so it's cool to see that hanging in in the rafters and hopefully we get another one this year.
Speaker 1:
After the rundown of everything at the scores table, we headed back to the kind of the back area by the locker room and got there just in time to see the guys they come out of the locker room and then they do kind of like a team huddle right before they go out. So we were right there by that and then they all ran out onto the court and so that was pretty cool. Just being right by the right by the huddle, um, I was pretty much like part of the team at that point, like, I think coach Malone. He looked at me and is like yeah, I, I know you scored 11 points in that rec league game. One time I'll call on you if I need you. So it was good, so it was fun. But once the game started we went up to our seats, which Jillian took care of us. Again, I can't say thank you enough to her for everything she did for us that night. But the seats were great, we could see everything pretty well and it was just fun to kind of start getting excited for the actual game now.
Speaker 1:
Game now and Jokic versus Wemby it's just such an interesting contrast because Wemby is 7'5", super athletic, like just long, can jump Like. Jokic is more of a ground, just kind of finesse player, but he's obviously powerful in his own way and so it was really just cool to see how they would match up and the Nuggets were a huge favorite. So I was kind of expecting a blowout but it ended up being a close game which was fun, and I got to experience a huge MPJ three-pointer at the end. And I had kind of forgotten that feeling because for the past many years with me living in Florida, the pretty much only time I get to go see the Nuggets live is when I go watch them in Orlando when they come to town to play the Magic. So obviously whenever the Nuggets hit a big shot in those games the crowd does not cheer and care really except for me and a couple of the other Nuggets fans there. So when MPJ hit that shot to kind of secure the game and the whole building erupted. It was just so cool to feel that energy and just be in there with all the Nuggets fans and it was just so great.
Speaker 1:
But the Jokic vs and it was just so great but the Jokic versus Wimby matchup did not disappoint. Jokic finished with 42 points, 16 rebounds and 6 assists and then Wimby finished with 23 points, 15 rebounds, 8 assists, but he also had 9 blocks and obviously, being 7'5" you're going to be able to block some shots. But he has really good timing, even when Jokic was kind of using his strength and pushing him out of the way. Wimbinyama is just so long that he got Jokic a couple times when Jokic kind of pushed him and was doing his little spins and moves and everything that normally he scores on those every time and Weminyama would just reach over him and block the shot and Jokic had a hilarious quote after the game.
Speaker 1:
Some reporter asked him about Weminyama and how he was able to block his shots and even mentioned that there was a time they caught the two talking on camera and just kind of laughing a little bit and Jokic was like, yeah, I was telling him, man, if you block me again. And then he took a long pause and he's like, well, really, there's nothing I can do. And so he blocked me four more times and there was nothing I could do. So Jokic was having a good time with that. He knew that Weminyama was just kind of a freak and not many people can block his shot like that. So it was good to see Jokic kind of joking around with the young guy.
Speaker 1:
And I said at the beginning of the year, the hype on Wemby is unreal and he's kind of lived up to it, so it's been pretty impressive.
Speaker 1:
So all around an amazing night, uh, went home after the game and then flew out the very next morning.
Speaker 1:
So it was such a quick trip but there was so many things that even if I would have just got to do that one thing or see that one thing, it would have been worth it and I got to do so many all in one night. So it was so fun and I, as I've been telling this story to people since I got back, I just really want to encourage people to make time for these little adventures and just to make memories and stuff, cause it's it's worth it. Um, I'm exhausted Uh it, it'll take me a few days to recover, since I didn't sleep really. I'm exhausted Uh it, it'll take me a few days to recover, since I didn't sleep really, but uh it, it was definitely worth it and um, couldn't be happier that I did it. So hopefully you enjoyed my story of my little uh basketball adventure to Denver, and we'll be back next week with a uh playoff preview as the only a few more games left in the season. Thanks everyone.