Razor-thin

When stepping off the stage at a big competition with a brand new group I was singing with, I knew we had had a hell of a debut. What I didn’t expect was all the other groups in the competition to drop by and either enthusiastically or begrudgingly congratulate us on our impending win. It was a humbling and exciting moment.

Until we lost.

I was dumbfounded, but also realized that maybe we simply hadn’t been as good as I’d thought. Several other performers and audience members also expressed surprise, but the group we’d lost to had been really good as well. I should know, it was the group I’d recently left to start the new one. I looked forward to seeing our score, as the competition committee was supposed to mail it to us the following week.

And mail it they did. Along with also accidentally mailing us all the other groups’ scores as well. Groups? Oops. The hardest part to swallow was that after some careful examination, we’d won. At least in the scoring. I reached out to one of the judges I knew, and tried to be polite in my inquiring exactly WTF had happened. I came to find that the group who had won, my old group, had received just enough “bonus points” to lift them over us. The bonus points were awarded because it was their eighth year in the competition.

Oof. We lost, but we won. Either way, by the slimmest of margins. I was proud, but pissed. Excited, but enraged. We’d missed out on a trip to nationals because my old group had been given a gimme.

It doesn’t take more than a minute edge to win or lose at anything. A friend of mine recently completed a week in his fantasy football league that would drive anyone to drink…

A hundreth. Of a point. I’d have busted my hand punching something. All that time, planning, and play and… A hundreth. Of a point. Damnit.

Or how about this race?

The distance between the first and fifth place finishers? Five hundredths of a second. 1/20th of a second. Between a medal and “try harder, please”.

When the Denver Nuggets rolled out sincere offensive and defensive efforts in the first quarter of their game against the woeful Orlando Magic on Wednesday night, they looked like a dedicated team who knew they were down two max-contract players and several important role players, a focused team who knew to take no one lightly, and to step on the neck of a squad who had lost their last seven in a row.

Too bad the same team didn’t end up playing the last three quarters of the game.

If you saw the game, or even it’s outcome, you know that the Nuggets phoned in the last three quarters, reigning MVP Nikola Jokic included. The Nuggets of the last couple years have had waves of guys to bring in when someone either wasn’t clicking or wasn’t trying. That is not the case in this moment of Nuggets basketball, and after 12 minutes, the guys on the court in Orlando already had their hearts and guts on the flight to the next stop.

When the Colorado Avalanche ended up having to play an unexpected goalkeeper in their game against a red-hot Toronto team the same night, you expected things might get rough in the net, and so the Avs had damned well better bring their A game on the rest of the ice to make it right.

Too bad that just didn’t happen.

Colorado climbed back into the game from a 3-0 deficit to make it 3-2 and looked like they might have found a shove on their skates from Big Mo, but wilted as quickly as they’d bloomed, finally turning in an embarrassing 8-3 shellacking before literally limping into the locker room. As soon as the Maple Leafs made the game 4-2, heads started hanging, the body language was terrible, and the effort was inconsistent at best. With the injuries and inconsistencies the Avs have suffered throughout this early season, the only way to win regularly is to play hard, play together, and play for each other. That was a lost art on Wednesday night.

Earlier in their season, with a very beatable Pittsburgh Steelers team across the way, the Denver Broncos took the most expensive defense in the league and made Pittsburgh look like the Steel Curtain and Immaculate Reception had both returned, turning in an inconsistent and bumbling effort on the way to squashing much that had been good in their 3-1 start to that point. You saw flashes of brilliance, but also unimaginable errors. Their room, their margin, for making such errors was infinitesimally small. And they made far too many to walk away with a win, let alone their heads held high.

When the Nuggets give their all, and keep their efforts focused, they still look like they can beat anyone in the league, even with their lengthening list of walking wounded. They have had impressive games against tough competition when they just keep their focus and effort tight.

When the Avalanche have played cohesive and strategic hockey, they still look like one of the top squads in the league, even when missing their captain for an extended period of time.

When the Broncos put together a focused and well-executed game plan, they have shown they can beat some of the toughest teams in the league, even with an insane number of injuries to starters and key role players, having to buck it up with a gifted-but-learning set of rookies and acquisitions.

But for each of the teams that Denver sports is current fielding, not a one has the depth or talent left on their rosters to do anything but bring their best night in and night out. Anything less leaves you on the ass end of a smackdown by someone you still ought to be beating. It’s still a long and arduous season for the Nuggets, Avalanche, and Broncos. The margin for error between winning and losing is truly razor-thin. Wafer-thin. Sometimes it’s the wrong side of that wafer that just leaves you feeling a little sick about it all.