Arena football plays like a video game designed by P.T. Barnum on an espresso buzz. So you must expect the bizarre.
But in the history of American sports, has a sport ever been delayed on account of confetti?
Long after every other crazy detail of a wild, 49-43 overtime victory that gave the Colorado Crush a shot at the Arena Football League championship is forgotten, this playoff game will be forever remembered with a goofy smile as the Confetti Bowl.
John Elway, Crush co-owner and Hall of Fame quarterback, has thrown touchdown passes in blinding snowstorms, placed his hands under the wrong rump to take a snap at the line of scrimmage, won two Super Bowls and even lost a game once with a band of wacko tuba players on the field.
Elway thought he had seen it all in this sport – until Sunday, when on a sunny afternoon in which the thermometer in Denver reached 75 degrees, it snowed inside the Pepsi Center.
It was a blizzard of blue, orange and white paper shot from air cannons at the conclusion of regulation time, when Colorado mistakenly thought it already had won the game against visiting Chicago.
It was one big, unforgettable mess.
An inch of confetti blanketed the field between the hash marks, but it could not bury a yellow flag, which indicated an interference penalty that wiped out a Crush interception in the end zone by Rashad Floyd.
Oops.
Talk about a premature celebration.
“When I saw the flag and all that confetti covering the field,” Elway admitted, “the first thing I thought was, ‘Oh, boy. Somebody’s going to be in trouble now.”‘
With no time remaining in the fourth quarter, after a few square feet of the confetti avalanche was scraped from the indoor carpet, Chicago’s Keith Gispert kicked a 17-yard field goal that sent the game to overtime tied at 43.
Then, as Crush coach Mike Dailey crossed his arms in disgust and stared at the brightly colored litter on the field, the game’s real heroes went to work. Four dozen members of the arena’s janitorial staff used brooms, trash bags and even a riding vacuum cleaner to sweep away the embarrassing mess.
The unsung MVP of this game was Mike Yepez, a middle-aged dude who wears his hair in a pony tail. He rode the confetti Zamboni with the skill of a NASCAR driver.
“When there’s a mess,” Yepez said, “we jump on it.”
Overtime was forced to wait 10 minutes, while the maintenance crew followed the paper trail and 13,719 spectators could do little except laugh. Referee David Lambros, however, was not amused. He suggested the Crush could be punished with a fine for a major delay of game.
So many panicked people have not cleaned up a room so quickly since your parents came home early from a vacation in the middle of a beer bash for adolescents.
Has Elway ever been involved in a game delayed by confetti?
“No,” said Elway, who lost his final college game when California returned a kickoff for a touchdown through the Stanford band. “I’ve seen a band on the field before the game was over. But I’ve never seen confetti. We lost with the band on the field. We won with the confetti on the field.”
If that’s karma, I don’t want to know what the football gods are smoking.
But what anybody with a funny bone has got to like about the AFL is this might be the last sport with a national TV contract that doesn’t take itself too darn seriously.
Between snaps, the arena shakes to a soundtrack apparently stolen from a teenager’s iPod.
There is a padded wall where the sideline is supposed to be. The Crush’s team mascot is a white pony with a complex about his growth being stunted 3 inches short of officially qualifying as a horse. Colorado will play Georgia next Sunday for the league title in Las Vegas, where irresponsible adult behavior is celebrated.
After Andy McCullough grabbed a 22-yard touchdown pass that won the conference championship for the Crush in overtime, Colorado players passed the trophy around the stands, precisely the sort of spontaneity that’s frowned upon by the stuffed shirts who run other sports.
“This trophy feels like a weight has been lifted,” declared Chris E. Goodwin, a fan who has been with the Crush from the start, all the way back in 2003. “We’re going to the ArenaBowl. I’ve been waiting three seasons for this day.”
Goodwin, whose distinguishing features are rosy cheeks, white beard and a belly that shakes like a bowl full of jelly, prefers to be called “Santa Crush.” If that doesn’t make you laugh, then maybe this isn’t the sport for you.
Arena football is beer and circus. It’s silly, insignificant and fun for us unwashed masses who think a good party is best measured by the size of the resulting mess.
Hey, confetti happens.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
