BOSTON (AP) -Boston’s streets will be crowded again Thursday with screaming fans celebrating a championship – but this time they’ll be wearing green.
Mayor Tom Menino announced plans Wednesday for a “rolling rally” at 11 a.m. Thursday to celebrate the Boston Celtics’ win over the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals. The parade will start at the TD Banknorth Garden and wind its way through downtown to Copley Square.
Sixteen World War II-era amphibious “duck boats” will carry the Celtics players, owners and staff. The team’s dancers, former Celtics greats and championship trophies from previous years will ride on two flatbed trucks.
City officials urged the hundreds of thousands of fans expected to attend the parade to use public transportation, with streets around the route closed to traffic beginning at 9:30 a.m.
The city has held five other championship parades since 2002 – three when the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl and two when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series. The last one was on Oct. 30, after the Red Sox swept the Colorado Rockies.
But Celtics fans haven’t had much to cheer since 1986, the final time Larry Bird and Boston won the NBA championship. That all changed Tuesday night, when Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen helped secure the franchise’s 17th championship.
“We’re a city of champions,” Menino said. “We are ‘Title Town.”’
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