Though Sunday isn’t normally considered a day to party, there are no shortage of places to celebrate a Saints victory on game day. Fans have been turning every Sunday Saints game into a reason to celebrate. With all the excitement surrounding the team, the only way to keep Saints fans from celebrating is a bye week.
For those who like to see the action live, one of the best ways to celebrate with the black and gold is with the tailgaters that fire up their grills outside the Superdome on game days.
Though she gets there early enough to hang out with the tailgaters, mass communication professor Lisa Martin says she is too amped up to enjoy any of the food grilled on game day. “I’m always too nervous to eat and drink,” she said. “But I do get there early and go around the ‘Dome and I take pictures of all the Saints fans who are unusual and post them on Facebook, so that’s my version of tailgating.”
History sophomore Daniel Housey doesn’t regularly partake in tailgating, but does enjoy the jubilant atmosphere around the stadium as kickoff approaches. Housey said he associates the smells on game day with New Orleans’ biggest party. “There is a foul smell of Mardi Gras in the air, (a smell) of cheap alcohol and sweat,” he said. Despite the somewhat unpleasant odors, he says the atmosphere before the game is intense. “It’s pretty exciting times. Everyone is just yelling and blasting music. There’s lots of ‘who dat’s being thrown around,” he said. Housey also said the party atmosphere at the Superdome carries out of the parking lot and into nearby streets where drunken fans cheer on the Saints from the back seat of their cars.
If a pre-game parking-lot party isn’t your style, there are also bars and restaurants around campus that have become fan favorites among students. One of the most popular places to take in a game is Fat Harry’s on St. Charles Avenue at Napoleon Avenue in Uptown New Orleans. “Fat Harry’s has a chill atmosphere and a more mature crowd,” said Housey.
International business sophomore Alex Failla also appreciates the bar for its calm, relaxed feel. “It’s not nearly as rowdy as your other Uptown bars,” he said. Failla, however, said he’s not too interested in all the partying associated with the Saints. Like many fans that choose to watch the game at home, he puts all his energy towards watching the game.
Another bar close to campus that draws in the fans on Sundays is Doors Pub and Pizza on Maple Street. Though the atmosphere of the bar is relaxed in a way that resembles Fat Harry’s, criminal justice sophomore Michael Dewey said the tension was thick in the air during last year’s Super Bowl.
“I was working at the Doors for the Super Bowl,” Dewey said. “It was tense at first, but then it really got amped up.” Tracy Porter whipped Saints fans at Doors into a frenzy with the game-clinching interception return for a touchdown. “After that, everybody just started crying,” Dewey recalled.
When the party cannot be contained to a parking lot or a bar, the festivities can spill out onto the sidewalk and, in the case of celebrations following last year’s NFC Championship game and Super Bowl, into the street. During the celebration of the game, one student helped fans celebrate by providing music for the frenzied crowd that had gathered on the streetcar line.
“Some of my friends got together and we went out and we grabbed our instruments and we thought, ‘what better way to celebrate the Superbowl than playing music for people?'” said music performance sophomore Casey Wilkes. Wilkes and two other student musicians walked up St. Charles Avenue playing the “When the Saints Go Marching In” for the fans that had spilled out of the bars to celebrate the team’s first Super Bowl appearance.
When the trio of horn players heard the streetcar approaching behind them, they found that music could substitute for a fare. “We got on the streetcar but we didn’t have the fare,” Wilkes said. Though the passengers appreciated the music, the operator had to collect something for the three musicians that had gotten on while second lining.
“Everyone on the streetcar just offered like a dime or a nickel or whatever they had, and we got a free streetcar ride down to Fat Harry’s.” In addition to their performance on the streetcar, they also continued to play for the crowd in front of the bar and received generous tips from patrons.
Whether it is in the Superdome parking lot, various Uptown bars or just on to the sidewalk and in to the street to halt traffic after a playoff win, Saints fans at Loyola have no shortage of places to watch and celebrate a game. Long time members of Who Dat Nation have noticed that the hype surrounding the team has changed dramatically since last years Super Bowl win. “People base their plans around games,” said Failla. “It’s not like, ‘oh, there just happens to be a Saints game’.”
With all the options for what to do on game day, Martin would argue the base place to catch a game is at the Superdome. When recalling her excitement while at the NFC championship game she said, “It was the most psyched I had ever seen Saints fans. I was the cheerleader and I told my section ‘I just came to get crunk’.”
Dewey said that the he enjoys the celebration despite the stress that the Saints put on him as a fan. “The party atmosphere is fun, (but) the Saints are going to give me a heart attack one day.”
