DENVER – For Broncos fans, the game on Monday, October 15, 1984 – which just happened to be the 200th broadcast of ABC’s Monday Night Football was one long time fans will probably remember, especially if you were at Mile High stadium that day.
Known as “The Broncos Blizzard”, more than 62,000 Denver Broncos fans braved bone-chilling conditions – in front of a live, nationally-televised audience – to watch the team take on Green Bay as wild winds and snow “wreaked havoc” on players who struggled to keep their grip on the ball while the storm dumped “nearly a foot of snow on central Colorado,” according to an article from the New York Times.
The National Weather Service (NWS) wrote that between 1 and 3 feet of snow blanketed the Denver metro area.
“The storm had arrived earlier that day, but did not start to gain intensity until Monday night. Winds gusted to more than 55 mph during the storm,” said the NWS.
The Broncos were able to put 17 points on the board while the Packers remained scoreless heading into the second half. Over the third and fourth quarters, the Packers came back with 14 points, but it wasn’t enough.
“The Broncos won the game by a final score of 17 to 14, with 14 of the Broncos’ points coming from their defense in the first minute of the game,” said the NWS. “The other three Denver points came on a crucial field goal in the first half from barefooted kicker, Rich Karlis. All of Green Bay’s points came in the second half.”
Former Denver Broncos safety Steve Foley told The Denver Post that he was often asked about that infamous game in which the storm dumped “the most snowfall during the playing of a game in Denver.”
“And I always tell them that it was the most fun I have ever had playing football in the pros. I felt like a kid again, back in New Orleans. Back then, when it would rain and flood, we'd go out and play football and splash through these puddles a foot deep. That's what the blizzard game was like. Just talking about it now brings a smile to my face,” Foley told the newspaper.
Here's a breakdown of the game.
The 1984 blizzard slammed Colorado “with a vengeance” forcing the closure of I-70 and I-25 from Denver to Colorado Springs while 55 mph wind gusts “whipped the snow into drifts as high as 4 feet,” said the NWS.
By the time the snowstorm ended, Stapleton International Airport (Denver’s old official weather reporting station) recorded 9.2 inches of snow.
The huge snowstorm and dramatic game apparently made such an impression on the nationwide audience that it gave a boost to Colorado’s ski resorts a few weeks later resulting in “record or near-record breaking starts” for the state’s slopes over Thanksgiving that year, according to a November 30, 1984 article from The Vail Trail.
“Local businesses cited good weather this year, along with a Monday night football game at Mile Hi Stadium which mentioned the favorable blizzard effect on Colorado ski resorts,” wrote reporter Duane Thompson.
“Frank Gifford pointing out the fact that the ski slopes were getting a lot of snow had a lot to do with it,” a restaurant manager in Vail told the newspaper.
While it’s hard to say what drove the increase in skiers at the beginning of the 1984 snow season, skier visits were up across the board at the state’s other resorts.
The Vail Trail reported visits to Eldora over Thanksgiving weekend were up 34 percent and up a “record-breaking 52-percent at Winter Park.”
“Ski Country’s Jan Pilcher credited the Broncos’ national publicity to making the phones ring off the hook’ at ski resorts,” reported Thompson.