Heart of a Champion

Saturday night, my roommate and I made our way down to San Diego with the hopes of scalping a pair of tickets to the Patriots/Chargers game in the divisional round of the playoffs. I’ve always been a big Patriots fan, but in all the sporting events I’ve attended, and there have been many, I never had the chance to attend a pro football game. I’d been to several college games, and they were always exceptional.

Of course I wanted the Patriots to win, but the desire to see them advance to the next round was magnified by the Colts win the previous day. I’ve passionately rooted against Peyton Manning since he was in college, and I don’t want to ever see him in the Super Bowl, and the more times he can be foiled by the Patriots in particular makes it even more enjoyable. 

Ellis Hobbs enjoys the ending

We arrived at Qualcomm Stadium around 10:30 am for a 1:30 pm start time. After exiting the trolley we were informed that we could not escape the station without a ticket for the game. That was something we did not have. We were trapped! Forced to take the trolley back the way we came one stop and walk toward the stadium in order to access the street, we encountered two large gathering groups of ticket scalpers. Exactly what we were looking for!

Going in, our goal was to obtain two tickets together at a maximum price of $300 total. Our planned strategy was to haggle with these deviants until approximately game time when prices should drop sharply when desperation sets in for the scalper to get at least something as opposed to nothing. Alex was to play good cop and I was to play bad cop. We also toyed with me being a lone ticket buyer and Alex posing as another scalper. The scheme was for me to talk a scalper down as far as I possibly could, then, just as I am ready to relent and buy at his price, Alex swoops in and undercuts him, forcing the scalper to drop his price or lose the sale. A cleaver plot indeed.

Once we were absorbed into scalper town the playbook went out the window. After talking to several scalpers we found a gentleman who offered us two seats right at our target price. We were able to talk him down to $290 for both seats and ended up taking the deal 2 1/2 hours before game time. Not at all what we planned, but we felt fortunate to get what we wanted below how much we were willing to pay and decided not to risk the scalper finding someone else who wanted the tickets and having the price raised or having the tickets sold. Yes, had we stuck it out we might have saved some money, but we decided not to push it.

There was the matter of the tickets and their questionable appearance, something I was very concerned about. The tickets were halfway torn, looked like they were printed on someone’s home computer, and only identified the game as “2006-07 Playoff Game” instead of the Divisional Championship Round. It also included the mysterious date of 02-Jan-07 while the game was on the 14th. The scalper’s explanations were not as strong as we would have liked and it certainly game us pause, but we took a shot anyway.

One of the suspicious tickets

With two tickets (allegedly) in hand we braved the anti-Patriot parking lot to meet up with Alex’s brother Brian to tailgate for a while. There were plenty of Pats fans on the trolley and in the parking lot, and the anti-Patriot teasing was mostly in good fun.

We didn’t spend much time in the parking lot, the suspense of knowing exactly where we stood in regards to the validity of our tickets was to much to bear by noon. We tried to find out at the ticket office but they informed us the only way to know is to have our tickets scanned, at which time we must enter the stadium and there is no re-entry. We decided to go inside, where we would be able to watch the ending of the Bears/Seahawks game on the big screen above the field.

We waited in line…hearts pounding…did we just get screwed out of $300? We get to the front of the line, trained to hear the beep-boop of the scanner reading the barcode on the tickets. The usher puts the scanner to Alex’s ticket. Nothing. No beep-boop. She tried again. Not a peep. Again? Nothing. We’ve been had! What a downer. “Don’t worry,” the usher says “sometimes it doesn’t read it right” she assures us. Beep-boop. He’s in! Beep-boop. I’m in!

We get to our seats and they are better than we thought. What a beautiful day. I won’t spend time recapping the game. You can find that here. But I will say we both got sunburned on a day where the morning felt like a January morning in Vermont, certainly not one in San Diego. My lips are still burned and chapped. The stadium stopped playing the other playoff game while in overtime in order to supply us with real time footage of LaDainian Tomlinson warming up for a half hour straight. We were unable to access the score on our phones, which were only good for text messaging at our height.

The game was excellent and the ribbing between Charger fans and Patriot fans was all in the right spirit, that is, until the Patriots came from behind and won in spectacular fashion, as is their signature. After that, all bets were off.

We made our way out of the stadium, long gone was the feeling of excitement and the smell of bratwursts being cooked in the backs of SUVs. Now walking in the lot felt much like I imagine side streets in Baghdad to be. Large pockets of Charger fans gathered throughout, blaring gangster rap and saying things to Patriot fans along the lines of “just give us a reason to hurt you.” We saw several fights, nearly all picked by sorrow filled San Diegans.

As we got further from the stadium the police presence dissipated and the packs of Charger fans ruled the roost, looking for isolated New England fans wandering in an area unfamiliar to them. Patriot fans traveled in large groups, employing the safety in numbers rule.

Alex and I were lucky enough to be incognito. I wore a Patriots beanie but it did not include names or logos and was pretty much ambiguous. We were not bothered, but the feeling of hostility was palpable. I received a text from a buddy I used to work with who was also at the game in Patriots gear. He confirmed that the feeling of hostility was not our imagination.

In the end we made it out alive, having experienced a great game on a near perfect day. I will leave you with a pre-game prediction from roid-raged Chargers linebacker and chronic lip licker Shawne Merriman for you to laugh at.

** Much thanks to Eliza and Joe for letting me stay not one but two nights in their wonderful apartment in Pacific Beach **

 ** UPDATED **

A whole lot of people pulling their feet out of their pie holes:

And Tom Brady deserves equal time: