Daniel L. Ritchie’s long journey came to an end Thursday in the most unlikely yet likely of places: At center ice. (Or, as the many arts aficionados in the audience might call it: Center stage). 

That’s where the modest University of Denver chancellor’s casket was placed on the covered Magness Arena ice rink in the $84 million sports complex that bears his name and serves as the heartbeat of the campus. The famously self-effacing entrepreneur and philanthropist was positioned just a few feet from a framed caricature, his signature cowboy hat, a folded American flag and dozens of yellow roses — including a few sprouting from a pair of Ritchie’s own cowboy boots.

Ritchie died Jan. 30 at age 93, leaving behind an enormous legacy in academia, the arts and childhood education that many of those gathered said will last for generations.

Behind him, friends and dignitaries took turns trying to adequately encapsulate and thank a man who was many things to many people. Perhaps more than anything: a friend of Colorado.

They said goodbye on a crisp, brilliantly sunny, 20-degree day. In other words: A perfect day for a hockey game.

Inside, his onstage admirers included Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Attorney General Phil Weiser. Among the crowd of about 2,500 were former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and Denver mayors Michael Hancock and Wellington Webb. Also, and perhaps most movingly: Just about every current athlete from every men’s and women’s sport at a university that owes its Division I NCAA status directly to Ritchie — most wearing suits or DU game uniforms.

“All of our teams at the university have dedicated their seasons to Mr. Ritchie,” lacrosse coach Matt Brown told The Denver Gazette. “On all of our jerseys, you’ll see we have a beautiful patch that incorporates Mr. Richie’s initials and the university’s gold tower.

“It’s pretty special,” added Brown, himself a former DU student athlete. “He shaped what DU is today, and we wouldn’t have any of this without him. So he means the world to all of us Pioneers. And I call him the pioneer, too. He was a pretty darn special man, and I am so thankful for everything he’s done for us.”

DU Chancellor Jeremy Haefner told those gathered that the day before Ritchie’s death, he came back to the university for dinner with trustees and friends. He was asking about the prospect of the Pioneers’ hockey team winning an NCAA record 11th national championship.  

“Dan, I know you’re listening. We got this,” said Haefner, who said Ritchie’s love for the university he personally saved from insolvency “was palpable.”

Ritchie’s many professional milestones were chronicled, including running Westinghouse Broadcasting in New York. “He tried to retire — four times,” said Denver Center for the Performing Arts CEO Janice Sinden. But that was before he was asked to join DU’s Board of Trustees in 1983 and the DCPA’s in 2006.

“He made millions of dollars — and he gave it all away,” said former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis, including more than $75 million to DU. “He also transformed industries, the DCPA and, in various ways, our city, our state and our nation.”

She attributed his personal longevity to a strict regimen of daily exercise, healthy eating, early bedtime, a voracious reading habit and a relentless curiosity about people, history and human dynamics.

“He viewed life as a great blessing to be cherished,” Love Kourlis said. “He was kind to others. He counted his blessings often. He had compassion for pain and ill fortune. He certainly experienced some of that himself, but he chose joy over and over and over again.”

Johnston called Ritchie “the moral compass of our city.” Former Denver Post Editor Gregory Moore called him a man of his word. He has been called Dapper Dan, Disarming Dan, Decisive Dan and Down-to-Earth Dan.

Polis said any of Ritchie’s singular accomplishments “would stand as a life well lived.”

“But I’m here to talk about the incredible difference that he made for kids and families across the entire state,” Polis said. “Dan spent decades of his life making Colorado a better place.”

In all the years Polis knew Ritchie, he added, he never knew what party he belonged to, “and I never even thought to ask,” Polis said. “Dan truly modeled what it meant for Coloradans to come together and put policy together over party.”

Asked what Ritchie meant to the city of Denver, Hancock simply said: “Huge.” He considered Ritchie “My kindest advisor because he would tell you the truth — no matter what it was. He was someone I called on day and night. He was someone I listened to very closely.”

Sinden, who was asked by Ritchie to succeed him as the Denver Center’s CEO in 2015, spoke of Ritchie’s love for artists and storytelling, particularly the development of new plays for the American theater, and especially those told by women. Under Ritchie, the company’s Women’s Voices Fund grew into the largest endowment in the nation supporting the work of female playwrights.

Sinden specifically lauded Ritchie’s commitment to education programs “from pre-K to Ph.D.,” she said. The DCPA’s education programs expanded exponentially under Ritchie, including his personal rescue of the Denver Public Schools’ annual Shakespeare Festival — the largest gathering of its kind in the world — by giving the largest gift in its history.

“Dan inspired us to dream big, be bold, aim high and contribute to the betterment of our city with his hope,” Sinden said. 

The ceremony closed with three dozen members of The Spirituals Project Choir harmonizing the gospel classic “Walk Together Children,” followed by a recessional performed by members of DU’s Lamont School of Music.

Afterward, several present and former DU faculty members walked among the many milling the Magness Arena concourse wearing hats that, with some imagination, could be considered cowboy hats in Ritchie’s honor. They had RITCHIE written across the brims. Over and over, speakers had returned to this idea of Ritchie as a real cowboy of the American West. Several times they referred back to James P. Owen’s “Cowboy Code of Ethics,” which Ritchie embraced as his personal foundational principles to live by. A video was shown of Ritchie reading from them at the end of his celebration:

“Live each day with courage. Take pride in your work. Always finish what you start. Do what has to be done. Be tough but fair. When you make a promise, keep it. Talk less and say more. Remember that some things are not for sale. And finally, know where to draw the line.”

“I didn’t want to do something just to do something,” Ritchie went on to say in the video. “I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives, just as people had made in mine.”