The Rocky Mountain Showdown, a longstanding rivalry between CU and CSU, went down without too much incident Saturday night, leaving Boulder, which hasn’t hosted the rivalry game since 2009, relatively unscathed.

Apart from nonviolent, mostly playful digs from both sides and a brief scuffle between players about 90 minutes prior to the start of the game, this year’s Rocky Mountain Showdown avoided causing any major disturbances – unlike some past games between the two universities.

Infamously to fans, in 1999, Denver police tear-gassed hundreds of fans after CSU beat CU 41-14 at Mile High Stadium, according to published reports.

However, despite Boulder police avoiding a tear gas situation, police did respond to a heavier number of calls than usual, according to Barry Hartkopp, a commander with Boulder Police Department.

One call involved a situation where suspect pulled a gun and caused a disturbance on the Hill in Boulder. Officers were able to respond within seconds and take the suspect into custody with no injuries to anyone, according an X post from the Boulder Police Department.

The suspect, a 20-year-old Broomfield man, was processed at the Boulder County Jail.

The increase in calls was nothing the department hadn’t prepared for, however, having increased their staffing “significantly” over what they normally do for CU Boulder’s home games, Hartkopp said.

On a normal Saturday night, Boulder police have about 25 to 30 officers on patrol. For Saturday night’s rivalry game, they expected to double that, Hartkopp said.

According to Hartkopp, the last time the Showdown was held in Boulder, there was an influx of fans from both universities, so the department wanted to be prepared for a likely increase in calls for service.

“(The game) created a significant draw of CSU and CU students and fans to Boulder and up to the University Hill area, and that combined with the added emotion around the Rocky Mountain Showdown game previously we’ve found led to the potential for things to get out of hand,” Hartkopp said. “We just like to be prepared for any potential events that might lead to additional calls for service.”

As Boulder got busier, Boulder police said on X, formerly Twitter, that they were seeing an increase in calls just after 6 p.m. There was an increased number of disturbance calls as the night went on, Hartkopp told the Denver Gazette at around 10 p.m.

Hartkopp did not clarify how many calls the department received.