Cherish it, because the best era in Denver sports history has arrived

Is the city of Denver on the verge of becoming Title Town, USA?

The Avalanche are trying to throw Colorado its first parade since February 2016, needing just four more wins to hoist the Stanley Cup. Six years in between parades isn’t all that long, but when the Broncos won Super Bowl 50, it snapped a 15-year drought. The previous occasion was to celebrate the 2001 Avs and Ray Bourque, Joe Sakic, Patrick Roy and the likes.

And around that time, victory celebrations had become commonplace in Denver. The Broncos won back-to-back Super Bowls during the 1997 and 1998 NFL seasons and the Avalanche won a Stanley Cup their first year in Colorado in 1996.

But then a dry spell hit for more than a decade, with the 2005 Broncos, 2007 Rockies and 2009 Nuggets each having real chances to win it all before ultimately falling short. It took Peyton Manning to finally deliver another championship, and even he needed a lot of help from Von Miller and an all-time great Broncos defense.

That’s the history lesson, but let’s focus on the present and why the best era ever in Denver sports has potentially arrived. The Avs proved during the Western Conference playoffs they have two generational talents in Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar. The former is a darn good player headed for one of the greatest careers in team history. The latter is getting compared to Bobby Orr by Wayne Gretzky himself.

Makar is that good and dynamic. He’s an “offensive” defenseman who’s brilliant on both ends of the ice. When it’s all said and done his ceiling is Orr, which would make him the top defenseman in NHL history. There’s no reason Makar, Mackinnon and the rest of the group (Rantanen, Kadri, Landeskog, Toews, etc.) can’t win multiple Stanley Cups the next five seasons. In fact, you could make a case they could take home three or more starting in a few weeks.

If the gold standard of Denver sports was from 1996-2001, when four championships were delivered, can’t the next six to eight years be even better?

The Broncos traded for future Hall of Fame QB Russell Wilson this offseason and he’s on the record saying he wants to play another 10-12 years and win three or four more Super Bowls. If Wilson does that, and the Avs do their part, that would blow the stretch from late 1990s and early 2000s out of the water. Even if Wilson can’t deliver that many titles, but instead one or two Lombardi Trophies, it would go a long way toward helping the overall cause.

We haven’t even gotten to the back-to-back NBA MVP. Nikola Jokic is already the greatest basketball player in Nuggets history, and it’s not particularly close. With all due respect to Alex English and Dan Issel, their combined MVPs add up to zero. Jokic is a generational talent who’s currently the best hoops player on Earth.

The Nuggets need to capitalize on that opportunity, and if they can get healthy, they will. The Western Conference figures to be wide open for years to come. If Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. get right, there’s no reason Denver can’t win its first NBA title. The greatest basketball player on the court in any possible series gives them a fighting chance.

It’s easy to under appreciate an era when you’re living in it. But the fact Denver has Makar, MacKinnon, Wilson and Jokic right now is something that should be soaked in. They are some of the very best players at their craft, all calling the Mile High City home at the same time.

With this reality, though, comes a pressure to deliver parades. The Avalanche are the closest, but the Broncos and Nuggets also have to cash in on their opportunities. There’s no reason we shouldn’t all gather downtown five, six or seven times before 2030 to watch the biggest trophies in sports be carried through the streets.

And then after that, everyone can go celebrate even more, on the best rooftop bar in Denver at Coors Field.

***