A Trip Down Memory Lane

Keeping with the 'not exactly an original column' theme, Shank recounts his last trip to New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS — It’s weird to be back here.

So many memories.

Much has happened since the last time we were here, since the night Adam Vinatieri converted the clock-beating field goal to beat the St. Louis Rams.

The Patriots won the Super Bowl at the Superdome in New Orleans on Feb. 3, 2002. It was in the first months after the 9/11 attacks and America was just getting back on its feet.

There was tremendous security for Super Bowl XXXVI. Paul McCartney entertained before the game and he was the “B” act. The big show at intermission was performed by U2, and the hair on your forearms stood up when when Bono sang “Where The Streets Have No Name” while names of 9/11 victims unfurled on the stage behind him.

The Patriots won. You probably remember Varitek splitting the uprights (right, Mr. Mayor?). It was the first time the Patriots ever won a Super Bowl, and it was the first time any Boston team won a championship since the 1986 Celtics beat the Houston Rockets (Houston, too close to New Orleans).

Lame lyric quote aside, this was a better effort than his previous column, notably for the few extra funny comments:

I walk through the lobby of my hotel on Poydras Street and remember that this is where the St. Louis Rams stayed before they were stunned by the Patriots in 2002. The Baltimore Ravens are in this same hotel this week. The 49ers are just a couple of blocks down Canal Street. Both Super Bowl teams are living in the middle of the party. The Giants did the same thing last year when they bunked a couple of blocks from the media center in downtown Indianapolis.

Bill Belichick would never allow this today. The Patriots generally find housing at some industrial park or nuclear-test site miles from the site of their upcoming game. The notion of the Patriots sharing living space with reporters is preposterous.