Boston Fetes Champion Patriots

Like bookends, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and owner Robert Kraft hoisted the team's two Super Bowl trophies at the head of a parade Tuesday to celebrate the team's second Super Bowl championship in three years.

Thousands of fans roared in appreciation as the team rode down Boylston Street in Boston Duck Tours' amphibious vehicles, flanked by police on foot and motorcycles along the parade route.

Confetti rained from buildings along Copley Square as the parade reached its official starting point, bound for City Hall, where a rally was planned for later in the afternoon.

Schools and businesses had braced for an epidemic of absenteeism during the celebration of New England's 32-29 Super Bowl win over the Carolina panthers.

Thousands of revelers -- some wearing face paint, wigs and Revolutionary-era militia outfits -- began streaming into City Hall Plaza early Tuesday. By midday it was jam-packed with screaming fans. The crowd cheered as images of the parade were broadcast on huge screens in the plaza.

Many more greeted the triumphant Patriots along the parade route. People -- many of them school-aged children -- were stacked 10 deep along both sides of Tremont Street.

Among them were high school students Sheila Gill and Dena Norton of Medfield, who hoped to get a glimpse of quarterback Tom Brady, the Super Bowl MVP, and receiver Troy Brown.

"We skipped school, but we'll do anything to support the Patriots," Norton said.

Fans lined 10-20 deep near the Park Street subway station near the Statehouse were doing everything thing they could to get a glimpse of the Patriots. Some even climbed atop the subway station entrances, and police pulled them down.

Windows were open in buildings along the route, and people leaned out, waving banners.

Jason Scheinbart, of Burlington, Vt., standing in Copley Square, said attending was all in a day's work for a "professional Patriots fan" who drives 550 miles round-trip to attend every home game.

"It's all about respect. Before, everyone thought it was a fluke," said Scheinbart, 34, referring to the Patriots' last Super Bowl win two years ago. "Now we've proven to them it wasn't a fluke. Now every team in the world that wants to win the Super Bowl has to go through Foxboro, Massachusetts."

John McCoy, 18, a high school student from North Attleboro, said he arrived at City Hall Plaza at 9 p.m. Monday night to wait for the parade to begin.

"I can't even feel the cold," McCoy said. "There's love all around."

Jenny Callahan, 20, a Wentworth Institute of Technology student from Florida, came with about 10 friends. She had "Go Pats" written in blue on one side of her face, with Brady's No.12 on the other. "I love him a lot," she said.

Another Brady fan, Elaine Bradley, 47, of Hingham, said rooting for the Patriots is a family affair. "I was a screaming maniac, wasn't I?" she asked her 12-year-old son Tucker, whom she brought to watch the parade along Congress Street.

It was about 32 degrees and overcast in Boston at noontime-- no heat wave, but balmy compared to the frigid temperatures that plagued New England throughout January.

Scott Hamilton, 36, of Methuen, and his brother Wayne Hamilton, 40, of Salem, N.H., were there when the Patriots celebrated their first title in 2002, and said winning will never get old.

"This is awesome. You've got to be enjoying it. You don't know if there's ever going to be another one," said Scott Hamilton.

Mike Faley, 17, said he and his friends left Leominster at 4 a.m. to get to the party. Wearing an oversized cowboy hat and toting a four-foot long plastic horn, he said he expected the Patriots to be hosting more celebrations in coming years.

"It's a dynasty," he said. "They're starting one now."