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Standing on the shoulders of giants: Locals lifted by Giant win
(by Mark J. Bonamo - January 24, 2008)
There are many factors that led to the New York Giants’ 23-20 overtime win over the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game last Sunday. Skill. Will. Luck. But ask Robert Egan what’s luck got to do with it, and he’ll set you straight: absolutely nothing.
“The last three wins weren’t luck,” said Egan, 49, the owner of Cubby’s BBQ Restaurant on South River Street in Hackensack, referring to the playoff hot streak that has fueled the Giants’ surge to the Super Bowl. “The Giants work as a team. Team skills will always prevail. And the other guys are due to lose.”
The other guys, the undefeated AFC champion New England Patriots, are set to face the Giants in Super Bowl XLII on Feb. 3 at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. But for the vast majority of area residents, the underdog Giants are the only guys that they care about, and they can see a Super Bowl triumph on the horizon.
The thrill of victory, the agony of being a Jets fan
The Giants’ nail-biting conquest of both the Packers and arctic conditions in Green Bay, Wisc. on Jan. 20 drew a wide-ranging local television audience. Some were amazed by the game. Some were shocked that they were watching at all.
“I have to say that I’ve never liked football because I didn’t understand it. But this was an extremely exciting game,” said Janine Vorhees, 37, of Ridgefield Park, who came to celebrate the Giants’ upset victory at Cubby’s with her son Alexander, 11. “I actually watched it from start to finish.”
Others watched the game and learned.
“I didn’t bet on the Giants, but now I definitely will,” said Harry Melber, 68, a Hackensack native who paused over his plate of ribs at Cubby’s to summarize Big Blue’s success. “After they won all those games lately, they made me a believer. I think they’re going to go all the way. They look real good.”
Others watched the game and winced.
“My manager Doug Savage is underpaid and overworked for only one reason: he’s a Jets fan,” said Egan, shrugging toward his employee with his tongue firmly in cheek. Egan’s blatant bias is based on the fact that he was the cook for the Giants for 14 years, dating from the end of former head coach Bill Parcells’ era to the beginning of current chief Tom Coughlin’s reign. He still counts Giants stars Amani Toomer and Michael Strahan as regular customers.
“But I think that even under the current workplace laws, I still can discriminate against Jets fans,” Egan said.
“My boss does not make the suffering any easier for me,” said the aggrieved Savage, 38, who has remained loyal up to this point to Gang Green despite the team’s dismal 4-12 record this year. “I may have to change my ways.”
Native New Englander all alone among Giants fans
Brian Roberge has no intention of changing his ways whatsoever. Sitting at the bar in Lazy Lanigan’s on Main Street in Hackensack, he was less than impressed with the Giants’ winning ways.
“This is great, because people from New York and New Jersey want the Patriots to lose. It’s not going to happen,” said Roberge, 27, a Hackensack resident who is a native of Worcester, Mass., and a life-long Patriots fan. “The Patriots are just too good of a team.”
On the record, Roberge predicted a 38-21 Patriots’ Super Bowl victory, pulling back his sweater to reveal his Red Sox T-shirt with a sly smile. For safety’s sake, he plans to watch the game at Lazy Lanigan’s. “There’s going to be a lot of Yankees and Red Sox fans in Arizona, and they are not going to get along,” he said.
He who laughs last, laughs best
Sitting next to his mother at Cubby’s, Alexander Vorhees knows what it’s like not to get along. In recent months, he has had to deal with not-so complimentary comments from his friends who root for teams like the Jets, Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints. Now, thanks to the leadership of Giants quarterback Eli Manning and the perseverance of field goal kicker Lawrence Tynes, whose game-winning kick in OT came after two missed field goals earlier in the game, Alex gets to be king of the Roosevelt School playground for a while.
“It was awesome,” said the sixth grader, who was around four years old the last time the Giants played in the Super Bowl and was a glimmer in his mother’s eye the last time they won it all 17 years ago.
“Now I hope that the Giants take down (Patriots quarterback) Tom Brady and kick the Patriots’ little butts.”
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