Most New Englanders went to bed Sunday night with images of confetti falling from the sky in Arizona. They awoke to the reality of snow falling from the sky at home, the second major storm to smack Boston in less than a week.

A foot of snow wasn’t enough to dampen enthusiasm for a wild Super Bowl win by the Patriots, a win that wasn’t secured until the strangest final minute the NFL’s championship has ever seen. The Seahawks inexplicably chose to pass the ball from the 1-yard line and Malcolm Butler – an undrafted rookie out of West Alabama – stepped in front of a Russell Wilson pass and instantly became a New England folk hero.

Boston is a city steeped in history. We walk the Freedom Trail and take visiting friends to Old Ironsides and the Beacon Hill Monument. The past is all around us.

And so it was in the Patriots’ historic win in the desert. There were moments of deja vu everywhere you turned.

Returning to Arizona had us remembering the loss to the Giants in the 2008 Super Bowl, a sudden punch to the gut for a city that had celebrated three NFL and two MLB championships in the previous six years.

That loss was highlighted by the ridiculous helmet grab by David Tyree, the pivotal play in the winning drive for New York.

We thought it was happening again Sunday night, when Jermaine Kearse turned a fumbling, bumbling, bouncing football into a 33-yard reception that put the Seahawks in position to win the game.

A day later, it was hard not to look out the window and think about how this incredible run had started. A falling snow took us back to the 2001 Patriots season, when Boston was the furthest thing from Titletown, USA.

We’d gone 15 years since a championship in any of the four major sports. The 1986 Celtics were a fading memory. Things had gotten so bad, a gathering at City Hall Plaza celebrated Ray Bourque’s Stanley Cup win in 2001. A Cup he won with the Colorado Avalanche.

The Pats changed all that on Jan. 19, 2002, when Adam Vinatieri drilled a 23-yard field goal through the driving snow in Foxborough. The kick changed everything, the key playoff moment on the way to the first title in franchise history.

For those of us old enough to remember, snow used to be a reminder of the infamous 1982 Snowplow Game against the Miami Dolphins, when a convicted burglar on a work-release program used a snow brush on a John Deere tractor to clear a spot for Pats’ field-goal kicker John Smith – who provided the only points in a 3-0 win.

The Patriots were ridiculed for the play as fans across the nation said they bent the rules for a win. Those accusations seemed familiar over the past two weeks with the endless debate of Deflategate.

On Monday there was no debate that the Pats were champions – winning it all for the fourth time in 14 years. It’s as close as you’ll come to a modern-day dynasty in the parity-driven NFL. It’s a reason to cue up the Duck Boats in Boston once again.

This time, those boats might need a snowplow to get through the city. And properly inflated tires. The rest of the country might not love this team, but in Boston we know we’ve paid our dues to become the City of Champions.

Tom Caron is the studio host for Red Sox broadcast on NESN. His column appears in the Portland Press Herald on Tuesdays.

Copy the Story Link