PHOENIX (AP) -Super Bowl fans had hit the parties and seen the big game and by Monday they were ready to go home.
Fans poured out of Arizona by the thousands the day after the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots, some of them eager to get over their hangovers, others still marveling at what will go down as one of the biggest upsets in pro football history.
“Coming into this thing I knew it was going to be crazy getting out of here Monday, but it was so worth it,” said Kevin Ciccotti, a 46-year-old “die-hard” Giants fan from Reno who was standing in the check-in line at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
“To see a classic game, a historic game like that and to be able to tell my kids and my grandkids what an experience it was, you can’t put a price on that,” said Ciccotti, who wore a Super Bowl champions T-shirt and a Giants jacket and hat. “This is nothing; you wait in line for a few hours, big deal. There’s nothing that can take away from the joy and the experience and to be with my best friends and watching it. It was great.”
s packed with people who went to the Super Bowl. Giants gear was everywhere. Patriots logos were a bit tougher to find.
William Utsman, a 76-year-old “100 percent, full-core” Patriots fan who was wearing a New England hat, was waiting to check in for his flight to Dallas.
“Oh well, we haven’t yet achieved perfection, obviously,” he said. “But we will next year.”
Utsman said it was an effort getting to and leaving Phoenix. “But I wouldn’t have missed it even knowing the circumstances,” he said.
Airport spokeswoman Claire Simeone said up to 150,000 people had been expected to take off out of Sky Harbor on Monday. That compares to the typical 75,000 to 100,000 people on a normal day.
“That’s like a busy holiday,” Simeone said. “It’s definitely mostly Super Bowl.”
She said some inbound and outbound flights were being delayed because of a combination of bad weather in the Midwest and East, a winter storm in Phoenix that decreased visibility, and the number of extra private and chartered jets also trying to take off.
Heather Olmstead, a 28-year-old Giants fan from Newport Beach, Calif., went to the Super Bowl with her husband and was racing through the airport trying to find a shorter line to check in for her flight to Burbank.
“We didn’t want to leave yesterday because we were out late,” Olmstead said breathlessly. “We didn’t want to leave later because of work.”
Adam Berkowitz, who took his 11-year-old son Dean to the game, said their flight to Los Angeles was running an hour late.
“It’s a bummer,” said Berkowitz, a Giants fan. “But it’s definitely worth it because it was such a fantastic weekend. We came here for the Super Bowl. It was the best weekend of my son’s life and the best game I’ve ever been to.”
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