It was January 2008 and my friend AJ called. We were just days away from the AFC and NFC championship games and both of our teams were playing for the right to go to the Super Bowl (AJ, who lives in Silicon Valley, is a huge Packers fan). The first 5 seconds of the conversation were going well, until he said four words that would forever come back to haunt us:
"I have an idea."
In hindsight, I should have just hung up on him.
'If our teams win on Sunday, we should watch the game together. In Vegas."
Within 3 seconds of hanging up the phone, I was online, looking at airfares and hotels. We were absolutely confident that both the Pats and Pack would be victorious - the Pats hadn't lost a game all season and were playing the Chargers, whose QB and running back were very much banged up. As for the Packers, they were playing the NY Giants. The Giants had a pretty good year, but the Packers had an excellent year and the game was in Green Bay, where the temperature was hovering around zero. And nobody is better in those conditions than Brett Favre.
Of course, the Packers lost, primarily because of Favre.
That should have been the end of it. Had both teams won, it would have been a blast to meet up in Vegas, each of us rooting for our teams amongst the chaos of a sportsbook on Super Sunday. But, it was not meant to be. Oh well, it was probably for the best.
Until we spoke later that week and he said, "I'm thinking we should go anyways."
We should have known better. The Packers lost - wasn't that an omen? And if there is one place in the world where fate should not be tempted, isn't it Vegas?
The Packers losing was omen #1.
If we had any smarts whatsoever, we would have recognized these signs and called the whole thing off. Instead, we yukked it up and rebooked ourselves at the Luxor, which is the Motel 6 of the Strip...you don't exactly brag about staying there. Neither would Tom Bodett.
Ironically, the days in Vegas leading up to the game were fun and profitable. We made good money at the poker tables, treated ourselves to some pricey meals and took in a Jerry Seinfeld show. On the day of the game, we ended up with front row seats in the Mirage sportsbook, thanks to a favor called in by a friend.
I brought an extra shirt for AJ, so that day, we were both Pats fans...and because we were utterly convinced that they would win handily, we bet on them, in a number of different ways. The tourist money being bet on the game favored the Giants, but that also reflected the fact that Giants fans in Vegas outnumbered Pats fans by about 3-2. The professional gamblers were taking the Pats, so we had that going for us.
Until the game ended.
Actually, by the time the 4th quarter started, AJ & I knew that we were going to lose our bets. The Pats would have had to blow the Giants out in the last 15 minutes and that clearly wasn't going to happen. As the game wound down, I didn't give the money a second thought...I was too nervous about the outcome.
After the game, I was seriously shellshocked. Perhaps having an emotional attachment to a sports team is a bit irrational, but in my incredibly simple (and slightly pathetic) life, the New England Patriots rank pretty high on the list of things that are important to me.
I was crushed. Not because of the money. And not because the Pats simply lost the game.
For most of their existence, the Patriots were the laughingstock of the NFL. Whatever could go wrong usually did. Watching them ascend from the outhouse to the penthouse over the last decade has been a tremendously enjoyable experience for me, even more so as a season ticket holder since 1994.
Had the Pats won, they would have done something no other team had ever done: gone 19-0. Sure, the 1972 Dolphins went undefeated, but their record was 17-0, thanks to a shorter regular season. A victory would have taken the Pats to another level. They wouldn't have just been a dynasty. They wouldn't have just been 1 of only 2 undefeated teams. They would have been immortal. In all likelihood, they would have been known as the best team in the history of the NFL, and who knows, maybe in all of sports.
And it would have been MY team people were talking about.
But they couldn't do it. And that is why it hurt so badly for me. Perhaps they choked. Perhaps it was just karma. Maybe if they play 10 times, the Pats win 8, but it didn't matter. They just couldn't do it.
After the game, which ended around 7 p.m. Vegas time, AJ and I went to dinner.
And then we went to bed. (Um, not together)
Yup, by 9:30, we were in the hotel room and lying in bed (not together). Sure, we could have gone out on what was our last night in town, but had we done so, we probably would have done something stupid, like drink way too much, gamble way too much and in all likelihood, both.
The next day, I flew home in a funk. And I didn't come out of that funk for about a month. That is how much it hurt.
Do I hold Vegas responsible? Of course not. The game would have ended the exact same way if I was home watching it on my couch. But there is an energy and aura in Vegas that makes any game seem infinitely more meaningful...even the Super Bowl. While I can only imagine what it must be like to be on the winning side, I know what it's like to be on the losing side, and it pretty much sucked.
I've always said that even the losing trips to Vegas are fun. And while I don't regret going, maybe we should have paid a little more attention to those omens.
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