New England fans flood streets, chant anti-Yankee slogans, in celebration of Super Bowl

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Posted 3:48PM on Monday, February 4, 2002

BOSTON - Fans danced on cars, climbed lightpoles and chanted anti-New York Yankee slogans after Adam Vinatieri's spectacular kick ended decades of Super Bowl failure for the New England Patriots. Vinatieri's 48-yard field goal on Sunday in the last second gave New England its first Super Bowl championship ever, a 20-17 victory over the heavily favored St. Louis Rams. "For so long, the city's been known as being losers," said Dan Shapira, 23, of Framingham. "(Sunday) was Boston's day. The tables are going to turn. The fans are going to feed off this and support all the teams." There will be more celebrations Tuesday, with a parade from Copley Square to City Hall Plaza. In Kenmore Square, near the Red Sox's Fenway Park, more than 1,000 fans crowded the streets and chanted Yankee slogans Sunday. Seth Burton watched celebrators outside his Northeastern University dorm room surround an empty car. "I saw them flip the car onto a fire made out of paper boxes and newspapers," Burton said. "The cops came and flipped the car back over, and left." Then, people returned to pulverize the car, he said. Things got out of hand at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 75 miles from Boston, where students stormed a dining hall, stole a table and tossed it onto a bonfire. Two people were arrested. Police in Boston and surrounding areas reported four arrests for offenses including vandalism and disorderly conduct. Boston's sports teams had become known more for failure than success, with the Red Sox's 83-year baseball championship drought emblematic of the regional frustration. Boston's last championship came when the Celtics won the NBA title in 1986. But the Patriots defied the odds and bad Boston karma all season, beating favored teams and overcoming a 1-3 start en route to Sunday's upset over the Rams, who were favored by 14 points. "We're the champions of the world," Marshfield native Scott Kantor, 35, exclaimed as he and 300 other fans at the Sports Depot restaurant in Boston's Allston section leaped after Vinatieri's kick. "Nobody gave us any respect at all," Kantor said, pausing to catch his breath as fans went crazy. "All the so-called experts had us being blown out. No one thought we could do it except for us."