As I sit here in Northern California getting ready for the NFC Championship game in frigid Green Bay, I have been reflecting back on my lifetime as a Giants fan. Having moved to California from NYC over the summer, the 2007 season marks the first year in which I have not attended a Giants home game since probably sometime around 1983, when I was 7 or so. My Dad has had season tickets since the 1960’s and he took myself and my brother to almost every home game throughout our childhood and well into adulthood.

So I do feel a slight disconnect with this current Giants team since I haven’t seen them in person and haven’t been living in the New York area during their run. On the other hand, I feel more connected than ever. This season has restored New York Giants pride. Yes, they made the playoffs the last two seasons (one horrific home loss to Carolina, one tough road loss in Philadelphia). Yes, in general the Giants are a successful franchise compared to many others. But there’s been a bad vibe around the team going back to the loss to the Ravens in Super Bowl XXXV and the collapse in San Francisco in the playoffs after the 2002 season.

The way they have won this year brings to mind the 1990 Giants team that won Super Bowl XXV. Both the 2007 Giants and the 1990 team played with a total team effort and with a great mix of hungry veterans and young players. There was something rotten about recent Giants teams, a lot of that was tied up with Tiki Barber’s role on the team and Tom Coughlin’s coaching tactics and Eli Manning’s inconsistent play. All of that is gone now. This is a true team that has rallied together and there is no better evidence of that than their 9-1 road record. No matter what happens this Sunday, they can build on this.

So, speaking of my Dad, he sent me this e-mail last Monday, reminiscing about the last time the Giants played the Packers in the playoffs (a game he attended):

“The last time the Giants played the Packers for the NFC title (then the NFL championship game) was December, 1962, my senior year in high school. The game was played on a frigid windy day in Yankee Stadium. In attendance that day, with reserved seats in the bleacher section were your grandfather, your Uncle Ted, and Peter (a school and camp friend and the center on our high school football team) and me. Those were the days when the NFL was just starting to become big business so you could get tickets for individual games in most NFL cities. It was also before the family had season tickets so on a cold December morning Peter and I left Brooklyn at about 4am, got on the Jerome Woodlawn express train that began it’s run at the Junction near Brooklyn College and arrived at the Stadium at about 5am. We waited in line until they starting selling the available tickets at about 9am. There were no more than 100 people in front of us on the line, although there seemed to be thousands behind us when the line finally started to move, so at about 10am we got our tickets, a limit of two each and returned to Brooklyn feeling as we had just struck gold. Peter knew that I wanted one of the tickets he was allowed to purchase so that both your Grandfather and Uncle Ted could attend the game with us.

Unfortunately the Packers won so it was a quiet ride home to as we had driven to the game by car. I remember that when the game started the temperature was 17 degrees with the wind blowing in our face from the start. Popi was wearing his winter fishing gear and brought a bottle of some liquor which you were allowed to do back then. The liquor was gone long before half time and with the weather so frigid I don’t remember any of us being the least bit drunk.”