Six minutes into the Super Bowl, the Seattle Seahawks grabbed the lead over the Denver Broncos by 8 points, and the vibe in downtown Durango shifted from a ramped up, energetic winter festival free-for-all to something a bit simmered down. Glum, you might even say. Before halftime, Ron Scott, of Colorado Springs, held on to hope outside of Cuckoo’s Chicken House and Waterin’ Hole: “We’re depressed because they are losing,” he said. But he remained optimistic. “Games are played in halves. The second half belongs to the Broncos.”
Inside the restaurant, it was less frantic than during the playoff games two weeks ago when the Broncos beat the Patriots. Cuckoo’s employee Chase Gobel said they’ve been doing more take out and less pouring.
“Everybody’s just been coming in and going out. We’ll see how it goes. We have to keep it up after halftime,” he said.
For Cuckoo’s owner Chris Redding, it was tough to take on the big game after the biggest winter festival in southern Colorado.
“We’re so worn out after Snowdown,” he said. “Businesses are tired. It would be great if Snowdown could find out what the NFL schedule was ahead of time and change theirs by a week. Snowdown is winding down, but for my business, the Super Bowl is big business.”
With the Broncos down 29 to 0 in the third quarter, Redding felt the pain.
“It hurts,” is all he could muster.
A few blocks away, at the Derailed Pour House, owner Todd Gibson was happy with Snowdown and business, but not so happy with the score.
“Every night,” he said, as a Broncos fan walked by blasting obscenities about an interception, “Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, by 8 o’clock, we had a line of a hundred, two stores down.”
A little farther away in East Rutherford, N.J., at the game, Durangoans Tiffany and Craig Jones were witnessing the tough loss firsthand.
They bought tickets to the game before the Broncos won in the AFC, and have spent the last few days in New York City, off Broadway with millions of other spectators, getting autographs, shuffling with the crowds and eating out. They saw New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, Peyton Manning’s younger brother. They even had the picture taken with the Lombardi Trophy, the prize awarded to the winning team in Sunday’s game.
“It’s been great,” Tiffany Jones said from MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford. “Quite the experience.”
In the fourth quarter, with the Seahawks up 43-8, a pall had settled on Durango’s city streets. No Broncos body paint. No safari expeditions. No streaking down Main Avenue.
Despite loyalty and fading optimism from fans like Scott and the Jones, the Broncos never covered the gap.
While the orange and blue may not have taken the Lombardi this year, they did make it to the big game. Durango made it through Snowdown week relatively unscathed, and while there were more than a few sad faces around town Sunday night, not every one was disappointed.
At Derailed, Jeremy Salsbery wasn’t sad. He’s from Seattle, and Sunday was a dream come true.
Wearing a Seahawks jersey in a sea of orange and blue, he began to hoot and holler when asked how he felt about the game.
“I have much respect for the Broncos fans, especially in this town,” he said. “It’s been hard these last couple of weeks. But we needed this as underdogs, and I’m very happy to see the Seattle Seahawks win a Super Bowl. We’ve been supporting this for years, and here we go.”
It ended 43-8 the wrong way, and for Durangoans and the Broncos, there’s always next year.
bmathis@durangoherald.com
