Wake up, Colorado. A football championship is on the line Sunday and yet this state has all the buzz and excitement of a laundromat.
Perhaps the elation of winning two Super Bowls and two Stanley Cups in the past seven years has made us numb to sports success (few things are more spine-tingling than a city’s first taste of a title), but we want to join the burgeoning crowd that is just now getting ready to embrace the Colorado Crush.
The Crush hasn’t exactly captured the hearts and souls of the masses in this sports-crazed state, but it’s not like they haven’t tried.
The John Elway-owned indoor football team has gone from the dregs of the Arena Football League in its first season, losing every single home game in 2003, to this Sunday’s ArenaBowl XIX. (The Crush take on the Georgia Force at 1 p.m. Sunday in Las Vegas. It will be televised on KUSA-Channel 9.)
Indoor football is a fast-paced, high-scoring game. Think football meets rollerball. There’s a padded wall where the sidelines should be, and there always seems to be time on the clock for one last score.
No wonder Elway, our fabled Comeback Kid, has found happiness in the AFL.
Players play for the love of the game, not mind-boggling paychecks. Sure, some may dream of an NFL payday, but just as many know their eventual careers will be in an accounting firm or at a construction site.
Many hard-core football fans have made their way to the Pepsi Center home games, lured perhaps by the celebrity of Elway, who offered autographed footballs and other items to season ticket-holders. But attendance has been rising across the league, with most teams, including the Crush, averaging between 12,000 and 13,000 fans at each game.
We know the Lombardi Trophy is not at stake Sunday, but have we become so spoiled that we can’t get just the least bit excited about the ArenaBowl?
We plan to tune in.
Now, who’s planning the parade?
