No way was John Buckley going to violate Commandment No. 4 on Monday night. Not on your life.
“’Remember opening day and keep it holy,’” Buckley, a defense attorney better known around the parking lots at Empower Field as the Mile High Prophet, declared from the grassy beer garden at Breckenridge Brewing Company’s Littleton campus. “Got to be there. Got to be.”
But how do you make do when you can’t be there in person? With Mile High verboten to anybody but Broncos friends and family, an evening at the beer garden was as close as many Denver fans could get to being there on Monday night.
More than 250 Broncos faithful packed 55 picnic tables, all socially distanced. Or huddled, once night fell, around four large fire pits, watching Denver’s season-opening contest against Tennessee via two giant high-def television screens.
“I like it,” opined Ken “Broncos Ken” Castaneda, a Broncos season ticket-holder since 1995. “It’s awesome to be around other, like-minded fans that want to see a good game and cheer their team on. There’s nothing like seeing a game at the stadium, you know, but we all have to make do this year, I guess.”
As making do goes, the invitation-only event made for a pretty nice fallback. Breckenridge had 300 gift bags of swag — hats, koozies, keychains — waiting for the guests. The assemblage was treated to chips, dip, braised chicken tacos and shrimp tacos. A couple of Broncos cheerleaders showed up for photo ops. And the fans had some quality face time with former Broncos wideout Mark Jackson, one of the “Three Amigos.”
“The party’s a wonderful opportunity to be here with other Broncos fans. It’s what we live for,” Buckley said. “But it’s not the same as being at the stadium.”
Although it did have some of those old, familiar beats. When Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill’s first quarter pass was broken up by rookie cornerback Michael Ojemudia, the assembled shouted, in unison, that the throw was (all together now) “IN-COM-PLETE!”
“It’s such a bummer,” said Catherine “Bronco Babe” Highland, celebrating her first Opening Weekend away from Mile High in 20 years. “But we’ll work with it, because we don’t want to get anybody sick. We don’t want to have any conflicts at all.”
All three fans stopped by the Mile High parking lot Monday morning, just because. Buckley said he’d run into some Titans fans, on their own pilgrimage, kibitzing near the stadium earlier in the day.
Dude feels their passion. And their pain. He’s had airfare and hotel for the Broncos’ first visit to the now-Las Vegas Raiders on Nov. 15 for more than eight months, purchases made pre-pandemic.
“I can get a refund, if I want,” Buckley said. “But I think I want to be in Vegas that day.”
He pointed to a tiny vial of dirt resting on his upper chest, dangling by a slim band around his neck.
“This is soil that I dug up from Mile High Stadium,” Buckley explained. “I dug up two pounds of it three years ago and I took it to Vegas on the day they broke ground on the new stadium and spread it out on the field. Because I want the Broncos to play on home soil in Vegas. And I want to be there for that first game.”
Well-played. If you can’t watch the Broncos on home soil, bring the Broncos home soil with you.
“I wanted to put my own special Broncos blessing on Allegiant Stadium,” Buckley quipped.
