From Tom Brady’s clutch game-ending drive to Adam Vinatieri’s game-winning field goal, the New England Patriots win over the Carolina Panthers Sunday night was incredibly similar to their last Super Bowl victory over the St. Louis Rams two years ago.
And from Kenmore Square to Lansdowne Street, Commonwealth Avenue to Harvard Avenue and Boston to Foxborough, the fans partied like it was 2002.
Thousands of Patriots fans, Boston University students and Beantown faithful swarmed Kenmore Square just minutes after Vinatieri’s 41-yard field goal sailed through the uprights and the last seconds ticked off the clock, giving the Patriots a 32-29 win.
Boston police, working in conjunction with the BU Police Department, blocked several streets leading into Kenmore Square, including Commonwealth Avenue, Beacon Street and Brookline Avenue, allowing fans to party without worrying about traffic and drivers to be safely directed around the area.
But Amy Browning, a College of Communication freshman, said the Kenmore Square festivities were lacking in comparison with the times the Red Sox won the American League Division Series against the Oakland Athletics and lost in the Championship Series to the New York Yankees.
“I’m all excited, except I wish there was more going on,” Browning said.
Browning, a Houston native, said she wished she could have been home for the game, as all her friends called her and told her there was so much going on in the city.
“It’s a really nice stadium,” Browning said of Reliant Stadium, where the game was played. “It’s new and everything. I wish I was there.”
Other fans ran around Kenmore Square and up Brookline Avenue to get closer to Fenway Park, where many hope to be celebrating in just more than eight months. Many shirtless men were shouting, and a couple women pulled up their shirts for a few seconds as well, trying to pull off their best Janet Jackson impressions.
Celebrations stretched as far as Boston Beer Works on Brookline Avenue and all the way down to Jillian’s on Lansdowne Street. People ran through the closed streets around Fenway Park, yelling and screaming how it would only be a little while until the Red Sox won it as well.
However, all the ecstatic fans were not dressed completely in Patriots gear. College of Communication senior Stephanie Bodi said she decided to create her festive Bud Light hat – made completely of Bud Light can – as she watched the game in her 10 Buick St. apartment.
“I decided to take all the empty beer cans they drank and tape them together,” she said. “I’m getting called the hat girl and the beer girl.”
Bodi wasn’t the only fan with decorative headwear: former Student Union President Ethan Clay celebrated by wearing a curly black Afro wig and former Union Executive Vice President Remie Ferreira wore a cowboy hat.
The crowds were relatively sedated compared to the riots that took place during the Red Sox games and the Patriots Super Bowl win two years ago. One fire was burning in the middle of a large crowd near the median in Kenmore Square and a pile of newspapers was on fire at the corner of Harvard and Commonwealth avenues, where other students and fans chose to celebrate.
Boston Fire Department Lt. Carl DiRocco said the crowd was not getting out of hand, as they had after previous sporting events.
“As long as they keep things under control, it’s fine,” he said. “If they get out of control, we’ll get the police in.”
Other partiers near Brighton Avenue set off firecrackers as people watched from second-floor windows of area bars.
Boston Police Department Captain William Evans, who was on the scene, said the crowds were “not unexpected” and said police were “anticipating crowds.”
“This is very orderly for the most part,” Evans said.
He said the Super Bowl celebration two years ago may have gotten a bit out of hand because the Patriots were a huge underdog. With the expectations high this year, Boston police took care to schedule extra officers, he explained.
“We didn’t have as many [officers on the streets] because nobody anticipated [the Patriots] winning,” Evans said. “This year we anticipated, and we were ready for it.”
Boston Police Media Relations would not comment early this morning on numbers of arrests or the general atmosphere of the celebrations across the city.
The festivities lasted long into the night, as the cold could not even turn BU students back to their warm apartments, the NFL postgame shows or the premiere of “Survivor All-Stars.”
Jamie Schwarcz, a Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences freshman, dressed warmly with mittens so she could celebrate with her friends in Kenmore Square. A New York resident and self-proclaimed Patriots fan, Schwarcz said her favorite part of the game – obviously – was when the Patriots won, but she said there was something else drawing her to the game.
“[Tom Brady] is hot,” Schwarcz said of the Patriots quarterback, now a two-time Super Bowl MVP. As an afterthought, Schwarcz added that Bridget Moynahan’s boyfriend is “a good quarterback too.”
Cleanup began earlier this morning, with beer cans, toilet paper, signs and other debris being picked up all over the city. But even with the big game over, the after-effects of Super Bowl XXXVIII will be felt for days to come.
The boys in blue and silver are back in town in the next couple days, with a noontime parade down Boylston Street scheduled for Tuesday and a rally at City Hall Plaza to follow later that day.
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