Our Ten Most Popular News Stories in 2022

It’s news to no one that Denver is a sports town of epic proportions, which is why it’s no surprise that a Broncos-related analysis tops our lineup of the most-read news stories of 2022.

Since they were both among the biggest media stories of 2022, we also knew that Kathy Sabine’s skin cancer battle and the loss of Les Shapiro had been popular reads. But the rest of the list was less predictable. Denver’s most dangerous neighborhoods to drive in and the return of a day devoted to going topless were big with readers, as was a story on a decline in the city’s population and an airline getting slapped with a hefty fine. The mushroom musings of a former Broncos QB, the Rainbow Family’s bad behavior, and a peek into Denver’s strip-club empire round out the roster of the ten most popular news stories of the past year. Here they are:

Never Has the Loss of a QB We Never Had Been So Lamented
Not snagging Aaron Rodgers as quarterback for the Denver Broncos is particularly crushing right now in light of Russell Wilson’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year, but well before this nightmare season could even be conceived of, hopes ran high that a QB knight in shining armor would save the day — and for a brief time, we imagined it might be Rodgers. Last February, rumors ran rampant that his breakup with then-fiancée and very-part-time Boulder resident Shailene Woodley meant that he’d no longer consider moving here. As if he ever had.

We Care About the Weather but Even More About Kathy
Several stories about longtime 9News meteorologist Kathy Sabine were among the most popular of 2022, but the article that got the most attention was published in June, right before she began publicly sharing her battle with skin cancer. "After nearly thirty years in Denver television, 35 years in the business, you realize the end is closer than the beginning," she told Westword when she announced that she would be moving off the 10 p.m. broadcast and into the 4 and 5 p.m. weekday slots. Just a few weeks later, she began sharing photos of her cancer journey, and by August, she had gotten back to the business of forecasting, much to Denver’s delight.

Losing Les Shapiro for Real Was a Tough One
Sports broadcaster Les Shapiro was beloved by those in and out of the sports world, and so when news broke that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer in 2018, folks far and wide waited and watched anxiously. Sadly, in January his family announced on Facebook that Shapiro had entered hospice, and he passed away a few days later.

The Dubious Honor of Most Dangerous Neighborhood for Drivers
Last March, Central Park (formerly Stapleton) registered by far the most accidents of any Denver neighborhood, with fourteen so far that year, five of which were hit-and-runs (the next highest, Lincoln Park, had eight, three of which were hit-and-runs). Not to be confused with Denver’s most dangerous neighborhoods, period — which we reported on in November — these were the neighborhoods where traffic accidents were reported to the Denver Police Department, and the data revealed that “in an unexpectedly large number of Denver neighborhoods, most or all of the accidents are classified as hit-and-runs.” Be safe out there.


Let’s Take Our Shirts Off and Kiss
It wasn’t all gloom and doom in 2022: One of the more joyous top stories was July’s announcement that body positivity had won in the battle against the nipple darkness. Denver’s GoTopless Day was returning to Civic Center Park after the pandemic had shut it down for two years. And in August, it was indeed shirts off as people marched along the 16th Street Mall, many with little more than sunscreen on their upper bodies. As organizer Matt Wilson put it at the time, “Our gatherings remind us of the beauty of camaraderie, congregation and social connection.”

Colorado Experienced Some Shrinkage
The population boom took a hit after the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau came out in April, showing that after Denver County’s population had grown from 600,158 in 2010 to 715,522 in 2020, the numbers dropped by thousands in 2021. Seven other Colorado counties, including three in the metro area, also reported population dips, and although other large metro areas didn’t have shrinkage, their gains were modest, a slowdown blamed — like everything else — on the pandemic.

Hey, United: Payback Is a Bitch, Isn’t It?
If there’s anything we need more than a new Broncos QB right now, it’s to hear about an airline suffering (especially if you’re reading this while still sitting in an airport or trying to track down your luggage). It may not seem like much in the big picture, but travelers everywhere cheered when United, one of the most maligned (particularly here in Denver) airlines, got slapped with a heftier fine than had originally been levied after the airline violated the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967; it had fired two veteran employees for their egregious infractions of watching an iPad while on break and not wearing an apron during service. The original fine was $1.5 million in 2018; the updated fine announced last March was $2.3 million.
He Always Seemed Like Such a Fungi Anyway
Former Broncos QB Jake Plummer announced last May that he believes he’s found the fountain of youth in the form of mushrooms — but not the kind that we just decriminalized. Instead, Plummer started his own company, Umbo Mushrooms, to sell folks on the idea that functional mushrooms, including lion's mane and reishi, ”have a lot of interesting compounds that can help with various things," as he put it. It may only be a matter of time before Plummer dives deeper into psychedelics, though, which he also says should be more widely available: “I want the people to have their medicine and not go to jail and be able to sleep at night."

Colorado May Be Somewhat Over the Rainbow Family
At the start of July, more than a third of the expected 10,000 members of the Rainbow Family were already on site in the Adams Park area of Colorado's Routt National Forest days before their actual event was to start on the 4th — but by that time, there had already been 191 arrests and citations. The hippie-ish collective, which was meeting for its fiftieth annual event, got hit with charges ranging from inoperable equipment, damage to natural resources, narcotics possession and/or distribution, and interference with federal officers. No word yet on whether they'll be back for more fun in 2023.

Peeling Back the Layers of Denver’s Biggest Strip-Club Empire
After a May 1 double shooting outside of PT's Showclub, a strip joint at 1601 West Evans Avenue, Westword profiled the company that had bought the joint just a year prior, Houston-based RCI Hospitality Holdings Inc., which describes itself as "the country's leading company in gentlemen's clubs and sports bars/restaurants." Also acquired in 2021 by RCI were four other Denver area nightspots: Mile High Men's Club, PT's Showclub Centerfold, La Bohème Gentlemen's Cabaret, and the Diamond Cabaret — bringing the company’s total strip-club holdings at the time to more than forty. That’s a lotta dollar bills, y’all.