View from the Super Bowl--3

To state the obvious, being at the big game is different from watching it at home on TV. But even more different than I thought.

For one thing, being at the game live keeps you in the moment from start to finish. We don't see the Super Bowl ads that can distract us for a few minutes from the excitement/tension of the game. We're watching the field waiting anxiously for the game to get going again. My oh my those commercial breaks were long and often agonizing!

Second, we never got to see the replays of controversial calls. Many of the times we couldn't hear the referee so we had no idea what was called and why. Thankfully some of Mike's friends kept texting him with updates.

Third, I was asked the other day if we stood the whole time. I expected to. But here's the weird thing about the Super Bowl. Even though the number of Steelers Fans made it a Steelers home game, in reality, at the Super Bowl, both teams are home teams so to speak. At a home game, you stand and cheer when your team is on defense to try to disrupt the opponents offense. When your team is on offense you sit and try to keep quiet so your team can hear the plays being called. So do you stand or sit at at Super Bowl? In our section, anyway, we all tried to sit when appropriate and stand when appropriate. Though grossly outnumbered by those Steeler fans, we all got along pretty good in our section--though I hear that was not the case everywhere.

So it's a very different experience being at that game--one I wouldn't have missed for anything. It was awesome.

We were on the Cardinals End Zone so we saw the intercepted Warner pass that was run the opposite way for a Steelers touch down. Talk about taking the wind out of the sails. Mike and I were so despondent we decided to skip the Bruce Springsteen concert and head down for some ice cream and walk off some nervous energy. Good plan. Normally half-time is crowded in the food lines and bathrooms. But because of the big show inside the stadium, the bathrooms and food lines were empty.

Even though the interception seemed to be a game breaker for the Cards, they were still in the game. With the odds against them--the half-ending interception/touchdown, the Steelers crowd, the many legit and questionable penalties called against them in the 3rd quarter, they went ahead with 2 1/2 minutes left. What a moment! To be there on the cusp of a Super Bowl victory. We didn't know what to do with ourselves. The D had been playing so well we were sure they could hold the Steelers and win the game. But in the end, we lost. Heartbreaking doesn't begin to describe it. And with all of those obnoxious Steelers fans celebrating! :)

To be honest, in the early moments of the loss I wondered if it had been worth it. As my son and I climbed into our car at Sky Harbor after flying home I asked Mike if he felt it was worth it because he was really, really devastated by the loss. He said, "If they had won, we would have been sick not being there. Those few seconds, when we thought we were going to win--that was worth it!"

The further I get from the game the more meaningful the whole experience is!

After the game we didn't get the Cards take on things like most in AZ got after the game. We didn't see the Monday AZ Republic until Tuesday so we had no idea how the team was doing. Our first flight home was mostly Steeler fans. When we got to our Phoenix flight in Atlanta, we finally had some fellow Cards fans to talk with.

One of the guys said his seats were in section 305. I said that that's where we sat. He looked at Mike and Mike's bright limegreen stocking cap and said, "You guys were sitting right in front of me. I have a picture of Mike on my phone!" So he sent the pic to Mike. Pretty cool. When I looked at my pics I actually have that guy in one of my photos!

It was a game for the ages. One of the best Super Bowls ever (outcome excepted!). And we were there. It was a day filled with every emotion you can imagine and worth every second of it. Our team, as someone said, lost like winners.