Saints’ trip to big game excites D.C.-area fans
If you think a lot of the talk surrounding the upcoming Super Bowl has surrounded one particular team from Louisiana, you’re right. The fact that the New Orleans Saints have made their first Super Bowl in the franchise’s 43-year history is a story line even greater than that of the Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning going for their second championship since 2007.
“It’s more energetic than I could ever imagine,” Kim Allen, president of the Louisiana State Society, based in D.C., said. “We’ve been waiting our lifetimes for this to happen”
Allen grew up right outside of New Orleans. Though she now lives in the metropolitan area, her allegiances haven’t changed.
“You may leave Louisiana, but your heart never does,” she said.
For a taste of the energy surrounding the Saints’ entry into the Super Bowl, the place to be this Sunday is probably Black Finn Saloon in D.C., where the Louisiana State Society is holding a Super Bowl shindig.
“It’s so much more fun to be in a room of Louisianians who appreciate the road it took to get here,” Allen said. “There are so many Louisianians who live up here.”
For the uninformed, the Saints have had more downs than ups over the past four decades, including periods when fans wore sacks over their heads while sporting signs that said “The Aints.” For some, a trip to the Super Bowl seems like a dream.
“I haven’t cried yet, but I might Sunday,” Veronica Ricca, a Louisiana native and D.C. resident who is also a member of the Louisiana State Society, said. She plans to get to the Black Finn early.
“Both of my parents are from the New Orleans area. I grew up listening to the Saints on the radio,” Ricca said, citing the NFL’s policy of not televising home games that aren’t sold out. “They were blacked out.”
The appeal of the Saints goes beyond folks from the New Orleans area. The team’s underdog status has a nationwide following, and the disaster of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 lends additional support, making the Saints a lot of people’s second-favorite team.
“They’re the ultimate underdog,” Allen said, who promises that if the Saints win the Super Bowl, she and her fellow supporters will “second line” in the streets of D.C., blizzard or not. “We’ve waited more than 40 years for our time to come.”
Ricca adds she isn’t sure what might happen if, no matter how improbable to some, the Saints win.
“I saw grown men cry at the championship game at the Black Finn,” she said. “I don’t know what to expect.”
Not that Colts fans should feel left out — they do have one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time leading the team.
“From what I hear, it’s just a sea of blue,” Doug Wasitis, who is on the board of directors of the Indiana Society of Washington, D.C., said, relaying what he’s heard it’s like in his home state. “As a die-hard Colts fan, it’s hard to be a fan from afar.”
The big question is, if the Saints win, will it be bigger than Fat Tuesday?
“Mardi Gras happens every year,” Allen said. “This is going to be our first time. The streets will be crazier than ever. It’s going to be amazing.”
