What has happened to my teams?

I'm from the Mile-High City. I'm used to having at least two premiere teams each year. I'm used to watching football until January, and hockey until until May. I've even grown accustomed to watching basketball into June the last few years. And now, all of the sudden, I might have nothing!

The Rockies are perennially bad, so I'm not even going to throw them into the mix. If the Rockies win, that's news. If they lose, it's just another season. But my other teams, the Nuggets, the Avalanche, and the Broncos, they are letting me down.

The Avalanche might* miss the playoffs for the first time since they moved to Denver in 1995. I say might with an asterisk, because it's almost guaranteed. With under 20 games to go, the Avs are now 12 points out of a playoff spot. They just lost 3 games against their division rivals, which were must-win in order to keep them in the race. They aren't mathematically out yet, but everyone knows it's time to start preparing for next season.

The Broncos started their season 7-2, as one of the top teams in the league. Four straight losses later, they needed a win against one of the worst teams in the league to make the playoffs, and they couldn't do it. Missing the playoffs after nearly making it to the Super Bowl the previous year, the Broncos let me down, and made me root for hated Colts in the big game.

Finally, the Nuggets are on the verge of missing out on the playoffs as well. While the Nuggs are in a much better position than the Avs (8th in the Conference, in the playoffs if they started today), and have much more time than the Avs to improve (28 games left), they should not be doing this bad. The Nuggs have lost 4 in a row, and have a dismal record of 2-8 when Melo and A.I. are playing together. That is awful. Granted over half of those losses were against the leagues elite (2 vs. Dallas, and one each against San Antonio, Utah, and Phoenix), A.I. was brought in to complement Melo and keep the newly found winning ways of the Nuggets alive, not to bring it down.

I'm still hanging on to a hopefull Nugget playoff apearence, but overall, it's just been a down year for the Denver sports scene. At least I can be sure of this...

The only way to go from here is up.