for holiday

in Denver

GEOFFREY C. ARNOLD

Despite pleas from officials to minimize driving --or not to drive at all --during this prolonged winter storm, Alex Thies wasn't about to miss the Trail Blazers' game Tuesday night.

Thies was more than willing to brave ice and snow and the afternoon rush-hour commute to drive from the Lloyd Center Mall in Northeast Portland to Beaverton and back to the Rose Garden. He said a trip that would normally take about an hour ended up taking more than three hours.

"I had to pick up my girlfriend from downtown (Portland) and drive her home in Beaverton," said Thies, 21, a district manager for a wireless company. "It was a long drive, because people were driving slower with the snow."

Thies wasn't the only person factoring in the weather when making plans to attend the Blazers' game against the Denver Nuggets. Fans, players, coaches and game officials had to deal with potential --and real --weather issues.

To make sure he wasn't spending too much time driving, Thies said he dropped off his girlfriend on a corner, about a block away from home.

"The street where we live is pretty bad. There's a lot of snow," said Thies, who said he lives near Southwest Scholls Ferry Road and Murray Boulevard.

The possibility of getting stuck in the snow might have crossed Thies' mind. That could have prevented him from being at the Rose Garden for the opening tip between Portland's Greg Oden and Denver's Nene.

"I had to see the Blazers beat Denver," Thies said. "It took three hours, but here I am."

The Blazers flew from Denver, where they lost to the Nuggets 97-89 on Monday night, but not before wondering if they would be forced to repeat their travel itinerary from Sunday. With nearly every scheduled flight out of Portland International Airport canceled Sunday, the Blazers took a bus to Eugene, where they caught a charter flight to Denver.

"There was some concern about what things would look like and what would happen when we got back," Blazers coach Nate McMillan said. "But the pilot said the weather was fine for us to land in Portland. We did have a contingency plan if we couldn't land in Portland."

Tuesday night's game officials --Ron Garretson, Ron Olesiak and Jason Phillips --managed to arrive in Portland on Sunday and walked into the Rose Garden about two hours before tip-off. But each of them encountered a nightmarish trip Sunday, one of the worst days for scheduled flights being canceled and delayed at PDX.

All three said they spent at least 12 hours traveling Sunday to make sure they arrived in time for Tuesday's game.

The Nuggets and their media made it to the game just fine. But the team is worried about getting back to Denver. With another storm approaching Portland that was expected to produce more snow Tuesday night and this morning, no one from Denver was interested in spending Christmas Day in Portland.

"This is my first Christmas at home in years," said point guard Chauncey Billups, a Denver native who is playing for the Nuggets for the first time in his 12-year NBA career. "I definitely don't want to be (in Portland)."

Chris Tomasson, the Nuggets' beat writer for the Rocky Mountain News, said he had a reserved seat on a 10:15 a.m. flight out of Portland this morning, but the weather forecast had him worried. He planned to try to get a seat on an early-morning flight in the hope of escaping the city before the weather caused another round of problems.

"I'm more worried about (today's) weather and the snow," said Thomason, no stranger to seeing lots of the white stuff in Denver. "I'm wondering if I'll be spending the holidays in Portland."

Geoffrey C. Arnold: 503-221-8556;

geoffreyarnold@news.

oregonian.com