Denver Magazine / Denver Magazine November 2008 / Stick It!

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Stick It!

In July 2002, professional lacrosse landed in Denver in the form of an expatriated National Lacrosse League team from Washington, D.C., that was purchased on a hunch by real estate developer and sports mogul Stan Kroenke. It was renamed the Colorado Mammoth and introduced to a city that's a football town all the way to its cleats.

The stickball game of lacrosse originated in the 1600s among North American Indian tribes that staged elaborate and ceremonial competitions believed to produce curative benefits. After its discovery by French explorers, lacrosse weaved its way across Canada and the northeastern United States, where, more than a century later, boys who dreamed of playing in the National Hockey League picked up sticks and played in backyards and fields as a temporary distraction once the ice melted in spring. In July 2002, professional lacrosse landed in Denver in the form of an expatriated National Lacrosse League team from Washington, D.C., that was purchased on a hunch by real estate developer and sports mogul Stan Kroenke. It was renamed the Colorado Mammoth and introduced to a city that's a football town all the way to its cleats. It was a curious investment: an unfamiliar team in an unfamiliar league playing a game with which most Coloradans were unfamiliar. Except for the occasional sighting of a high-school team practicing on a field during an evening commute, lacrosse was a foreign affair.

Then the craziest thing happened: People went nuts.

As in, sell-out-every-game nuts. As in, dress-up-in-jerseys nuts. As in, goo-up-your-face-with-paint, spike-your-hair, declare-a-rambunctious-section-of-the-Pepsi-Center-the-"Tar-Pit"-and-scream-like-a-teenager-at-the-referees nuts.

Out of nowhere "” and to the happy surprise of Kroenke and his associates "” the Mammoth, and the NLL at large, quickly have become something nobody imagined professional lacrosse might become in Denver: hip.

"I'm telling you: If somebody said, "˜I've got tickets this weekend for the Broncos or for the Avalanche,' I'd turn them down. I would go to a Mammoth game every time," says Brian Barkley, a Westminster fitness instructor. Barkley became a convert after attending a Mammoth game four years ago on a whim. "The energy level is phenomenal," he says. "There's nothing like it."

When the Mammoth begin their seventh season December 20, hosting San Jose at the Pepsi Center, the atmosphere will be a familiar one for loyalists like Barkley who have come to expect big thrills, lots of noise and a friendly crowd of zealous believers.

You sort of have to be there to get it. During home games, the theatrics run high, the volume is cranked up and the crowd roars almost nonstop as players dart, crash, weave and sling a solid rubber ball across the playing field. With rock music blaring, KPBI's program director "Willie B." calling the action and the sound of lacrosse sticks crashing against kneepads, a Mammoth game can feel, at moments, like the epicenter of the Colorado sports scene. With apologies to Kroenke's Denver Nuggets, who, on occasion, seem to somnambulate through the final minutes of a blowout, a Mammoth game at full roar seems very much like the place where the action is.

"It's more exciting and fast-paced than any other major sport in the world," says Jake Watson, a 16-year-old high school lacrosse player who lives in Centennial and has gone with family members to Mammoth games since the team's arrival in Denver. "We have the best fans. The games are amazing. I can't really explain it."

Watson isn't alone. Starting with its first season and extending through last year, Kroenke's Colorado Mammoth has been the unlikely darling of the National Lacrosse League, a collection of 13 franchises that play a 16-game schedule of indoor lacrosse in cities stretching from Portland, Oregon, to Edmonton, Alberta. For each of the last three seasons, the Mammoth has led the NLL in home attendance, filling the Pepsi Center with an average of 17,000 fans. The team has made the playoffs in all six seasons and won the league championship in 2006.

Prospective owners who are thinking about buying in "” the NLL recently added a team in Boston for the 2009 season "” study the Mammoth closely for clues about how to succeed. Across Interstate 25, Patrick Bowlen's Denver Broncos have launched a second professional lacrosse team, the Denver Outlaws, that plays outdoor lacrosse in a separate league, the MLL, during the Mammoth off-season. Surprise, Denver: While you were out watching Rockies and Avalanche games, the city quietly has become the unofficial capital of professional lacrosse.

"What happens in the game of lacrosse runs through Denver," says Steve Govett, a former professional indoor lacrosse player who used to crash into opponents (he set a then-record for penalty minutes) as a player for the Philadelphia Wings in the mid-1990s and became president and general manager of the Mammoth in 2002.

For all the spontaneous hoopla that seems to erupt at a Mammoth game, the team's success is, in fact, the product of a very calculated approach by Kroenke Sports Enterprises, which seems to have pressed many of the right buttons in cultivating a fan base. Tickets, for one thing, are cheap. Barkley spends about $1,100 a year, or about $34 a ticket, per game, for four close-to-the-action seats in section 104. When Kroenke Sports brought the Mammoth to Denver in 2002, executives made a point of keeping tickets affordable, figuring their competition for fan support wasn't any other sports team but instead a night at the movies. You can still get Mammoth tickets in the nosebleeds for five dollars a game.

The game itself, of course, has been part of the formula, too. "We put on a great show around here, but at the core of that show is a great game," says Govett. To keep it that way, he's determined to maintain playoff-caliber talent for the Mammoth by bringing in a new group of younger, gifted players to complement Mammoth veterans.

Govett has especially high hopes for Matt Danowski, a 2008 first-round draft choice who earned the NCAA record for career points while playing for Duke University's lacrosse team (yes, that Duke University lacrosse team, and no, neither Danowski or any of his teammates was convicted of anything. Oh, and they won the National Championship in 2007).

Danowski hasn't yet played in "” or attended "” a Mammoth home game, although he's heard stories about the crowd and the noise. But playing in front of 17,000 screaming fans isn't the only adjustment Danowski, who grew up playing lacrosse as a kid in tiny Farmingdale, NY, will have to make. The indoor-venue NLL employs a smaller goal (4 feet by 4 feet, 9 inches) than the 6-foot-by-6-foot target employed in outdoor lacrosse. At the league's combine, where Danowski and other invitees attempted to impress NLL scouts, most of his attempts went astray. "I tried a few shots," he says. "It didn't turn out too well."

Danowski's portrayal reflects a sort of off-the-cuff humility that's common among lacrosse players. In the world of professional sports, they're relative paupers who play more for the love of the game than the allure of a big paycheck. The typical NLL professional earns about $15,000 a season, and nearly every player maintains a day job. Dan Carey, a lanky, soft-spoken 26-year-old from Ontario who made the NLL All-Star team last season, makes $20,000 a year as a Mammoth forward and does double-duty as an employee at the Kroenke Sports Enterprises front office, where he runs a community outreach program that teaches local elementary school kids about lacrosse.

Carey typifies a love-of-game ethic that Govett says is nearly universal among lacrosse players. His father gave him his first lacrosse stick when he was a kid, and he's played ever since. Carey is all about lacrosse: Sometimes at night he has vivid dreams about scoring goals, and during the season, a persistent band of bruises on his wrists serves as testament to the physicality of the game. Carey says the Pepsi Center at full roar can present a powerful home-field advantage. But like many who play lacrosse, it's secondary to what happens on the playing surface. "For me, whether it's two people or 17,000, it's still a rush," he says.

That, as much as the pulsing music that blares during games, is what makes the NLL and the Mammoth appealing. "A lot of professional athletes seem to feel it's a chore to be out there playing," says Barkley. "These guys have regular jobs. And when they play, they play their guts out."