DENVER — The Best Little Sports Town in America just added another banner to hang a Mile High.

As the Summit drew near, Denver drew a line in the sand. And dared the rest of the U.S.A. to cross it.

“I think it’s intoxicating, that environment you just feel,” Summit FC goalkeeper Abby Smith said after Denver’s home opener ended in a 0-0 stalemate with the Washington Spirit. “And I think just our supporters were behind us, cheering the whole time. We heard them constantly.”

With 63,004 packed into Empower Field, they were hard to miss. No U.S. market has ever drawn that many people for a professional women’s sports event in this country — let alone a soccer event.

Leonardo da Vinci himself couldn’t have drawn up a sweeter draw. The 14ers banged drums and danced like no one was watching. A “Trans People Belong In Sports” banner hung in front of the south stands. A poodle in cool shades watched from a warm lap at midfield.

Denver didn’t just set a new record for the largest attendance at a professional women’s sports event. The Front Range shattered it by 22,913 patrons.

Take that, Bay FC.

Take that L on the way out, Chicago Stars.

“It was a shocking revelation to imagine that a city like Denver didn’t have a women’s team,” NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said before the match. “I’ve spent time in Denver through my days at the NHL and my days at the National Lacrosse League, (and) anytime I’m here, I feel like the culture is one that screams, ‘inclusion.’ And it is not surprising when you think about that, as well as the success of U.S. Women’s National Team when they come here. And so (Summit controlling owner) Rob (Cohen’s) vision to bring a women’s professional team here had to happen. And we were just proud to be the ones to make that decision.”

You listening, WNBA?

How about you, PWHL?

Just because the NWSL was first doesn’t mean they should be the last.

“It’s incredible to see Denver supporting women’s sports in this way,” Summit fan Karen Hohnecker, who turned up wearing an “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports” t-shirt, told me just after a record crowd was announced. “And it’s just part of this bigger wave of everyone getting involved in women’s sports — much beyond women, but also men, boys, little kids. Everybody’s going to be raised watching women’s sports and not thinking of it as anything different than men’s sports. It’s a really exciting time.”

A few rows over, Genni Williams didn’t have a dog in the fight. But she did have a dog in her lap.

Williams and her wife, Julie, both of Lakewood, Colo., sat in Section 123 inside a sweltering Empower Field with their senior poodle Janelle, a 13-year-old service dog with poor hearing and no teeth. They even brought tiny sunglasses for Janelle, the coolest pup in the place, to watch the Summit and Spirit duke it out from the midfield concourse.

Julie’s the soccer fan in the house. Genni is … learning the game. The couple bought season tickets to Summit FC recently, although, they admitted, the origin story of that one is a little hazy.

“I didn’t even remember that I had bought them because they called, (and) we were in the lottery, right?” Genni Williams said. “(They had) called right after I just had a back surgery and was not super clear-headed. I thought I had made it up until I saw (a note), I found an email, and I was like, ‘Oh (expletive), I did buy season tickets.”

“So now you’re into this franchise, win, lose or draw,” I said.

“Oh,” Genni replied, raising an eyebrow, “you can end on a tie?”

Yep. 0-0. Everybody drive home safe.

“It’s like ballet with aggression,” Cheri Brichacek leaned over and explained to Genni. “The footwork is so phenomenal. The precision of the footwork — just watch that and you’ll enjoy the game. You don’t even have to know their roles. Just watch for (the feet).”

Brichacek sat to the Williams’ left with her mother, Noreen, who turned 89 last month. Cheri grew up playing soccer in Maine, moved to the Front Range about 30 years ago try it for a few months, and never left.

“(Mom) hasn’t been to a big soccer game since Pele,” Cheri explained.

That would be the Brazilian legends’ last game with the old New York Cosmos — all the way back in October 1977 at what was then Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

“She scalped tickets under a bridge,” Cheri recalled. “She took me and a soccer ball. It was hysterical.”

“We went across to get the tickets because it was pouring rain,” Noreen added. “I mean, it was pouring rain.”

Noreen’s a hoot. She got three letters in high school athletics, including one for 6-on-6 basketball, a long-defunct iteration of the sport in which three players from each team play only on the offensive or defensive side of the court. Ask your great aunt from Iowa about that one.

“I said, ‘When I croak, I want my letters to go with me,'” she chuckled.

Cheri, meanwhile, watched the Summit make history with her mom to her right and a USA soccer hat dangling from the seat in front of her. It belonged to Michelle, her late wife, who passed away last year after a battle with ovarian cancer.

“Phenomenal soccer player,” Brichacek said. “Speedy.”

Mother and daughter rose with the crowd in the 81st minute as a cross from the Summit’s Caron Pickett was headed just wide over the left post by Melissa Kossler.

In front of them were younger generations of mothers and daughters, who’ll tell their own Summit tales three or four decades from now. The green smoke. The flames. The flyover. The noise.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Noreen said of the crowd. “Biggest match we’ve been to for women’s soccer. It’s phenomenal … the effects that they used (in the pregame) were beyond stunning. Just beyond stunning. And the women deserve it.”

Darn straight.

“I’m not going to say (they’re) ‘The 12th (Man)’ yet, because I went to (the University of Texas),” Smith cracked. “So I’m going to say it felt like we had 15 people in the field. Because everybody was there and everybody was in it with us.”

To the end, 63,004 strong. Marching to the Summit as one.

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