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A bona fide powerhouse, the University of Denver Pioneers' success has the utilitarian benefit of being damn entertaining, and for ticket prices that don't require special financing. The country's No. 1 team at the end of the regular season, the Pioneers entered the playoffs poised — expected, really — to reach their fifteenth Frozen Four and compete for their eighth national championship. They then promptly lost their opening playoff game. Still, if Magness Arena isn't part of your winter-entertainment agenda, make it so next season.

Find your center. Now, come to mountain pose. Slowly stretch into warrior pose and hold. Return to mountain pose and take a sip of your beer. Yoga isn't for everyone, but the Bristol Brewing Company in Colorado Springs is closing that gap by offering guy-friendly classes geared toward beginners — and beer drinkers. Attendees get the class, water, and post-workout pint in the Bristol Tasting Room. Namaste.

Hot Sulphur Springs Resort & Spa is like a hot springs buffet. The place boasts 21 mineral pools, some indoors and some out, whose temperatures range from 95 degrees (for the timid) to 112 degrees (for the bold...and boiled). The all-natural water is chock-full of stuff like sodium, sulfate and magnesium, which sound like ingredients for a chemistry experiment but are supposed to be good for your skin. And while the pools smell like sulfur, the odor isn't overwhelming or unpleasant. For $17.50 a day, it doesn't get much more relaxing than this.

Every skate shop in the country has a team of local skaters repping it, but the 303 pros have done more to shape the Denver skate scene than any other crew. Team riders Angel Ramirez and David Reyes have been getting coverage in the national skate mags lately, and 303Boards.com is updated a few times a week with new footage from the shop's 303, CLFX and Street Trash team riders. Watch for It's Always Sunny in Colorado, the new 303 video directed by Bucky O'Connell, due out this summer.

If you've ever had a hankering to strap a couple of rackets on your boots and take off across the snow like Jesus walking on water, Copper Mountain's Redfeather Snowshoe Tours offers a chance to try the egalitarian winter sport, with quality equipment and a guide — for free. Led by Copper Resort Ambassadors, the tours give you a slower view of snowed-in mountain meadows and forests than the one that speeds by when you're schussing down the slopes. Choose one of two tours offered daily — a more rigorous three-hour morning hike for adults or a two-hour, family-friendly romp in the afternoon — and get a real taste of the winter landscape.

You should never wipe your nose on your mitten. Not only will you have snot on your mitten, but you'll scratch the living hell out of your soft nasal tissue. Vail's Monica Martin took this to heart when she came up with the Snot Spot — a fleece-and-Velcro partial covering that fits over gloves and mittens so you can blow your nose on the go. Made in Denver, the first Snot Spots hit retail in 2005. Today there are four styles: two for skiers and snowboarders, one for runners and one for bicyclists. Made of ultra-absorbent Malden Mills' microfleece, a Snot Spot sucks the mucus in below the surface so it doesn't show. But you should still wash it — often.

Best Chance at Beating Shaun White in 2014

Matt Ladley

Four years is a long time in snowboarding, but we'll put our long odds on Matt Ladley for the next Olympics. The young rider from Steamboat Springs is inexperienced and inconsistent and a little bit insane — he was one of the first to huck a double cork in the pipe after Shaun White showed it was possible — and with a little bit of work, he just might be in Sochi, Russia, in 2014 for the XXII Winter Olympic Games.

It'd be amusing to choose someone else here. It'd also be wrong. Carmelo Anthony not only is a lock for Best Nugget, he's among the best in the league, and he's emerged as the NBA's best pure scorer. His offensive arsenal — jump shot, penetration, post-game and the like — is the most versatile in the league, and he long ago deserved to strip the title of Mr. Big Shot from teammate Chauncey Billups.

Considering the timing of things, it's hard not to show love to Rockies skipper Jim Tracy. With the team mired in a face-stabbingly frustrating start to 2009, Tracy was elevated from bench coach to manager at the end of last May, and the team immediately set off on a tear that didn't end until the playoffs. A model of mediocrity over his career — he's 636-614 in eight seasons as a manager — Tracy's laid-back demeanor clicked perfectly with the understated Rox roster. Here's hoping he has the same effect this season, all season.

Even poor college students need to keep their chakras in balance, but the costs of all those mats, water bottles and punch cards put yoga out of reach for many. Fortunately, the good people of the Auraria Health Center offer yoga every day but Sunday. Whether you choose kundalini, hatha or any of the many types available, you will stretch, you will sweat — but you will not pay a dime. Non-Down Doggers can choose from an astonishing range of free movement classes at Auraria, from African dance to meditation to belly dancing. We'll om to that.

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