Tri-City Broncos fans living in the moment

Tri-City fans of the Denver Broncos are limiting their boasting when it comes to their team’s chances against the Carolina Panthers in the Super Bowl.

“I don’t want to get myself any bad ju-ju,” said Genni Currie of Kennewick. “It’s going to be a tough game.”

Part of that hesitation comes from their team’s performance this year — the struggles of veteran quarterback Peyton Manning and some losses that they said shouldn’t have happened.

The Broncos’ last Super Bowl appearance two years ago, where they were beaten by the Seattle Seahawks by 35 points, still haunts them.

Raymond Bennett of Pasco brought an airhorn to a watch party that year intending to use it each time the Broncos scored, but ended up only using it whenever he was bothered by a Seahawks fan watching the game with him.

“She was loud and obnoxious,” Bennett recalled. “I only got to use my airhorn to shut her up from all that cheering.”

Fans still are reveling in their team’s success this year. The fact the Seahawks, the team that whipped them so badly back in 2014, didn’t make it as far? That’s icing on the cake.

“We’re in it and they’re not,” said Janet Karback of Kennewick.

Each will root for the Broncos in their own way.

Currie said a former boyfriend of her sister’s was a fan and it rubbed off on her.

Bennett grew up in the Tri-Cities but has family in Colorado. He started loving everything orange and blue after spending childhood summers with his grandparents there.

Karback was 19 when she met legendary Broncos quarterback John Elway, now the team’s general manager and vice president. He was friends with her neighbor when the two played at Stanford University, and she played basketball with Elway when he visited. She’s been a Broncos fan ever since Elway started playing for them in 1983.

They aren’t afraid to show their team colors or fandom for their team. Karback wore multiple pieces of her Broncos gear in a recent online commercial for her real estate firm, Coldwell Banker, and went to a game in Denver with family this year.

Currie has made it to a preseason game, while Bennett has an annual ritual of attending a Broncos game at their home field in Denver each year. Now they’re all planning watch parties for the coming game.

“My goal is to sit on my butt this game,” Karback said, noting she’s usually busy being a hostess when she holds game parties. “This one’s for me.”

It’s not easy being surrounded by Seahawks fans.

Currie’s husband ribbed her pretty good after Super Bowl XLVIII, and she found her desk covered in Seahawks merchandise when she went to work the next day, she said.

Karback has also withstood the mocking of Seahawks fans over the years, she said.

There aren’t any hard feelings though. Bennett will actually watch the game with that one fan who annoyed him two years ago. She’s now his fiancée, and they’re getting married this fall while wearing custom-made jerseys for their respective teams.

“I’ve been rubbing it in a little bit this year,” Bennett said, laughing. “But she’s a good sport.”

This story was originally published February 6, 2016 at 8:16 AM with the headline "Tri-City Broncos fans living in the moment."