Sports Night(s), AKA The Triumph Of The Jazz And Then The Broncos

Hey! A blog post, after almost a month! Sorry, everyone, February has been a "lost month" for our family...we caught the flu bug this year and all of us were terribly sick at some point during the month. More on that later, perhaps...but I am really hoping I can get at least one more blog post done before the month ends. (Thank goodness it's a Leap Year; otherwise I'd be doomed! Hooray for calendar-required extra days of the year!).

Anyway, I've been looking for opportunities to go on "mother-daughter dates" with my girls lately. Nathan takes each girl out to dinner for their birthday, and they love that tradition, but it has made me wonder whether I shouldn't take similar opportunities when they pop up. Since her tastes run similar to mine, I've thought Lorelai would be the easiest kid to "plan a date" with. Sure enough, an opportunity on Groupon soon presented itself!

Lorelai has been very interested in basketball on and off throughout the year; after we attended a college basketball game last year, she talked about someday watching an actual NBA or WNBA game. I agreed that it would be a fun idea, and started investigating the possibility. To my pleased surprise, Groupon (the discount deals website) frequently has Phoenix Suns tickets for sale! The seats are in the nosebleed section of the arena, and usually you have to buy them for games that are just a week or two away, so there isn't a lot of preparation time. This was problematic when I first discovered the tickets for sale; it was early November, and we had our holiday strictly scheduled out already. But a friend of mine told me in January that the Groupon tickets were back...this time for a series of games in early February, a much less busy time for us. With Lorelai's approval, I bought two tickets, and our date was set!

Since the game wasn't until 7:00 at night, we decided it would be best to drive up there in time for dinner. We also decided to get up there just before dinner, so we could pick up the dinner for the next night before we had dinner that night.

Got all that? Long story short, Lorelai and I left home at about 2:30 pm. As soon as we arrived in the Phoenix area, we headed to our favorite restaurant, Rudy's BBQ, to pick up a bunch of goodies for dinner with Grandma Barrett the following night.

Mmm. What a delicious pile of meat we bought! It would stay wrapped up neatly in the trunk of our car until we brought it home late that evening.

Weird sculptures in downtown Phoenix...

...that of course Lorelai tried to climb on.

After that, Lorelai and I went and bought our pre-game dinner, at a nearby Five Guys Burgers and Fries. It was just a short walk away from the basketball arena.

The burgers at Five Guys are seriously delicious, as are their "Cajun-style" spicy fries. Our only problem? We ordered way too many fries. I got a "large" order, and that ended up filling a whole paper bag! We had to run back to our car and stick the greasy bag of fries in with the Rudy's food. At least we would have a lot of heavy, fatty, salty, delicious treats for the following evening. It was Super Bowl Sunday...and everyone knows there's no better time to each that type of food!

Finally, my first-born and I made it into Talking Stick Resort Arena, home of the Phoenix Suns. Lorelai was in awe of the swanky professional sports arena. I was feeling pretty excited myself; it had been a really long time since I'd attended an NBA game. I went to several Nuggets games in my youth and college years, and once right after Nathan and I were married. This was the first time I'd ever seen the Suns play live, and their opponent that night was the dreaded Utah Jazz!

The seats, as I'd suspected, were pretty darn high up. Lorelai was a little disappointed at first, but ended up enjoying herself anyway. We were still able to clearly see everything that went on. I told Lorelai that we should probably pick a team to root for, and then stick to rooting for that team throughout the game, no matter what. Apparently, my girls think it's okay to root for "whichever team is winning"... a breach of spectating etiquette, if you ask me! Since we are both Arizonans, we decided to cheer for the Suns...

...who then proceeded to lose the game! Sadly, it was never a very close contest. The Jazz were clearly the better team, and played like it all night. Lorelai got frustrated that "her" team was losing; I had to gently remind my competitive child that accepting losses is an important life skill. In spite of the Suns' losing effort, we still had a great time together. We got to talk a lot about sports, school, and life in general.

We also enjoyed all the special "in-between" events that happened between quarters and during time-outs. The dancers strutted their stuff; the mascot performed crazy stunts and wild antics on-court; regular folks from the audience entered free-throw challenges for huge piles of cash. And the T-shirt guns, too, of course...we musn't forget those!! Unfortunately, we were seated so high up, that no T-shirts made it to us. The funniest thing I saw was a Burger King-sponsored "sandwich drop"...a bunch of arena staff walked through the catwalks high above everyone's heads, and then sent dozens of boxed fast-food burgers "parachuting" downward, to be scooped up by a few lucky(?) fans (I have to wonder how fresh those sandwiches were, though!)

When the clock finally ran out, Lorelai wanted to take a little time to explore the arena. We moved lower, and got court-side, to get a good look at the actual basketball court:

We also walked around the lower levels, where Lorelai got "acquainted" with the Suns' mascot (who, for some unfathomable reason, is a gorilla):

After making the dark, chilly walk back to our car, Lorelai was completely pooped. By this time, it was almost 10:30 pm! I had her lay down in the backseat of the car and get some sleep while I drove us home. It was a long, tiring night, but a very fun date with my daughter. I look forward to doing other outings like this with my younger girls later on in the year!

from latimes.com

The next day was SUPER BOWL SUNDAY. Hooray; our beloved Denver Broncos were taking on the heavily favored (and overhyped, as it turned out) Carolina Panthers. As I've said before in this blog, Nathan and I are pretty big fans of the Broncos. And Nathan's mom (and our entire extended families) are big fans as well! Since Peyton Manning joined the team (a fact I appreciated, if never fully got used to), the Broncos had become an AFC powerhouse once more. They'd won several division titles, set offensive and defensive records, and taken yearly trips to the playoffs. They'd even made it to the Super Bowl in 2014...only to lose in horrible fashion to the Seattle Seahawks.

It was an ugly, ugly game, and it was one of the hardest things I'd ever had to watch. Normally, Nathan and I host (or attend) a Super Bowl party every year, and 2014 was no exception. But we became so upset and depressed that we proved to be terrible hosts. After that day, we vowed that if the Broncos ever made it to the Super Bowl again, we wouldn't have a party...we'd just travel to Sandy's house and watch the game with her. That way, we'd be among "true" Broncos fans, and if we needed shoulders to cry on afterwards, Grandma would be there to commiserate with us as only she could.

The 2015 season was a long, weird, tough year for the Broncos. Peyton Manning, after suffering multiple injuries, was a shell of his former self. In fact, Manning sat out several games in the middle of the season, and was spelled by his (thankfully competent) backup Brock Osweiler. They had a new head coach and defensive coordinator, both of whom had been fired by their previous teams. They had an absolutely brutal regular-season schedule, playing seven teams that would ultimately go to the playoffs.

And yet...they just kept winning (well, not all the time...their final regular-season record was 12-4). And they were close victories, too; eleven of those twelve wins were by seven points or fewer, an NFL record! Every game was a nail-biter; our hearts got quite a workout that year! But although the Broncos bent, they didn't break. Their new head coach was Gary Kubiak, a former Broncos quarterback, and his fierce devotion to the team gave the players a steely resolve that they'd lacked in previous seasons. Even more significantly, their new defensive coordinator, Wade Phillips (who'd also coached the Broncos previously...in fact, he was the head coach for a short while!) managed to shape the team's once-mediocre defense into a fast, furious, frightening unit that is possibly the best defense the Broncos have ever had. After their smothering efficiency all season, I'd propose that they are in the running for one of the best all-time defenses in the NFL.

So even though we liked what we'd seen throughout the season, our whole family was nervous going into Super Bowl Sunday. We all thought the game would be closer than the Broncos' last Super Bowl, but having them go in as underdogs against a high-powered, young, offensively tough team? We were scared. After all, this was to be the Broncos' eighth Super Bowl (that's tied with the Cowboys, Patriots, and Steelers for most Super Bowl appearances ever!). But five of those Super Bowls were huge losses. Losing badly in Super Bowls is kind of the Broncos' "thing." So can you blame us for being stressed?

During the game, there was a lot of pacing, a lot of shouting at the screen, a lot of fingers and feet drumming nervously against a variety of surfaces. And over the course of a few hours, interspersed with a bunch of lame commercials and a forgettable halftime show, something truly wonderful happened...

from vox.com

...my Broncos won the Super Bowl! They never trailed in the game; their defense was as aggressive and smothering as ever. The Panthers made a few valiant attempts to get their rhythm going, but nothing ever materialized. It was not a "pretty" game (the final score was 24-10, with only two offensive touchdowns total in the game); both quarterbacks played poorly, and both offenses were messy. But if you appreciate seeing a dominant defense in action, then it was a very impressive performance! As you can imagine, there was a lot of cheering, whooping, and hugging when all was said and done. It almost didn't feel real.

We drove home that night in a wave of euphoria that lasted for days afterwards. I proudly wore my old, battered Broncos T-shirt around for days afterwards. That shirt has been with me ever since the Broncos' first Super Bowl victory, back in 1998. At last a replacement would be forthcoming! My parents promised to get us the official NFL shirts should the Broncos pull out a victory. And they came through with that promise!

We were very happy to receive the shirts; Nathan and I both wear them with pride! It is so nice to have that victory to keep us happy throughout the spring and summer, and hopefully for a long time to come.

That about does it for our "sporty" weekend; it has been a while since I had a few days focused so intently on sports. On with the off-season!