Boston postpones Super Bowl parade after heavy snow
New England Patriots fans celebrate Sunday, Feb. 1, 2015, in Boston, after the Patriots won the NFL Super Bowl XLIX football game against the Seattle Seahawks 28-24 in Glendale, Ariz.(AP Photo/Steven Senne)
BOSTON — The Super Bowl celebration in Boston for the New England Patriots has been put off for a day as the city continues to get battered by heavy snow.
Mayor Marty Walsh said the city will postpone a planned victory parade through downtown until Wednesday.
He said the city and team both agreed to hold off on the parade because of Monday’s snowstorm, which dumped more than a foot (30 centimeters) of fresh snow in the Boston area, making commutes treacherous.
“We thank everyone for their flexibility and patience during the planning of this parade and we look forward to celebrating with Patriots fans during better weather on Wednesday,” Walsh said in a joint statement with the team.
The city had announced earlier that the parade would take place Tuesday. But with weather continuing to worsen, Boston public schools preemptively canceled Tuesday classes, the fifth snow day in the past week. A decision to cancel the parade followed shortly after.
Boston has seen a record 34.2 inches (86.9 centimeters) of snow over seven days, according to the National Weather Service. The previous seven-day record was 31.2 inches (79.3 centimeters) in January 1996.
Following their 28-24 victory over the defending champion Seattle Seahawks in Arizona, the Patriots flew home and arrived safely Monday evening at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Scores of flights in and out of the airport were canceled or delayed Monday.
The team retweeted a message from running back Shane Vereen: “Boston! Your Champs just got home!! (hashtag)hellosnow (hashtag)itscoldbutourtrophieskeepuswarm.”
The latest snowstorm didn’t stop fans in the northeastern New England states from basking in the glow of their team’s fourth Super Bowl victory.
Todd Penney, of Coventry, Connecticut, was still recovering from a heady night of celebrating as he prepared for work Monday morning as a town engineer.
“My voice is very hoarse from screaming at the TV. I was all in last night,” he said. “It will be a lot more fun for me to snowblow this morning after the Patriots’ win than if they would have lost, that’s for sure.”
Other fans recounted tense moments from the rollercoaster victory.
“It was an exciting game, a nail-biter to the end. You don’t get to see games like that very often,” said George Vemis, as he cleared the sidewalk in front of his variety store in Whitman, south of Boston.
At the Modell’s Sporting Goods in Cambridge, devoted fans trickled in Monday morning as thick fluffy clumps of snow fell, grabbing commemorative T-shirts and hats by the armful.
From Boston to western Massachusetts, police reported that Patriots fans celebrated raucously but without mayhem late Sunday and into Monday.
The championship parade will include a fleet of 25 amphibious “duck boats” resembling those used during World War II — a staple of championship parades in Boston — which will carry the team through downtown Boston.
“We’ll make sure the duck boats get through the snow,” Walsh said. “We’ll probably have plows in front of them, behind them, beside then, next to them, under them.”
