Far away from eye-high snow drifts, sub-freezing temperatures and wind chill factors in negative digits, there will be a football game on Sunday of some importance in the desert climate of Glendale, Ariz., and a number of local people will be heading west.
Among the New Englanders who expect to be at University of Phoenix Stadium when the Patriots take on the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX is Marblehead resident Stephen Hamelburg, who will be attending his fourth NFL championship game, and Lynn resident Josh Polonsky, who is working as part of Comcast SportsNet’s team at the Super Bowl.
Hamelburg’s first Super Bowl in person was in Houston in 2004, when the Patriots beat Carolina, and then he attended the big game the following year when the Pats went back-to-back with a win over Philadelphia in Jacksonville. He missed the 2007 loss to the Giants (the David Tyree game) in Glendale but was back in the stands in Indianapolis in 2011 when New York again upset the Patriots.
?I didn’t go when they beat the Rams (in 2002), and afterwards so many people told me it was the time of their lives,” Hamelburg said. “Since then, whenever the Patriots have been in the Super Bowl, I’ve tried to get there.”
Hamelburg will be at the game with his son, Jake, a junior at Marblehead High, and three friends, Jay Goldman, Jeff Zunick and Roger Michalowski, all of whom are also from Marblehead. They also were part of a contingent that traveled to San Diego last month to celebrate Hamelburg’s 50thbirthday by attending the Patriots/Chargers game at Qualcomm Stadium. A season-ticket holder, Hamelburg has attended 10 regular-season games this year ? six home games (he missed the Buffalo and Denver games), two away games (Buffalo and San Diego) and the two playoff games at Gillette Stadium.
Obviously, Hamelburg is no fair weather fan. He’s been going to games long before the move to Gillette, and his father was a season-ticket holder back in the former Schaefer/Sullivan/Foxboro Stadium era, when the Pats weren’t always a lock for the playoffs. He was present for the first game at the old stadium, a 20-6 win over the Oakland Raiders in 1971, and he even remembers being at games during the Pats’ AFL era.
?I’ll bet I’ve been to 80 percent of the home games over the past 40 years,” he said.
Hamelburg and his friends went to Glendale without tickets, but he’s confident he’ll be able to score some. Of the three previous Super Bowls he’s attended, he’s only boarded the plane once with a game ticket in hand.
?There’s a strategy to getting tickets,” he said. “Right now, the tickets are double what they were going for last week, but they’ll come down. ”
Hamelburg and his wife, Helyne, are the founders and co-owners of Paradise Dental in Swampscott, just off Vinnin Square.
Polonsky, 37, graduated from Lynn Classical in 1996 and then from Framingham State in 2001.
?This is my fourth Super Bowl ?week,'” he said. “Since 2011 when the Patriots went to the Super Bowl and lost to the Giants, I have been a part of Comcast SportsNet’s broadcast from the Super Bowl host city. However, the last two years I have been back home by the start of the game. This year, we will have a pre- and post-game show live from the stadium in Glendale, much like what we did for Indianapolis.”
Comcast SportsNet (CSN) works in conjunction with the SportsHub (98.5 FM) to simulcast the ?Felger & Mazz’ radio show five days at the Super Bowl. CSN primarily relies on media “pool” coverage to fill content needs, and specific shorter reports come from a few local sports writers and Michael Felger. When the Pats are in the game, obviously the local interest grows greatly, so they amp up the coverage.
The work days are long for Polonsky, but he enjoys the them.
?The Super Bowl has become much more than just a game,” he said. “The week leading up to the game is an event unlike anything I’ve ever seen. There are celebrities in town, major mus