SOUTH HADLEY - For Patriots super-fan Dean Whalen, the trip to Houston's Reliant Stadium nearly went bad.

This was to be Whalen's first Super Bowl. "He told me he felt like a 6-year-old waiting for Christmas," his wife Susan said yesterday.

"He went down there thinking he had a ticket. But he didn't. And then this unbelievable luck dropped into his lap."

In fact, Whalen, 45, was thinking he and his four friends had at least four tickets when they left Western Massachusetts late last week for Texas, and would only need to find one more. Instead the group wound up facing the prospect of finding three tickets.

"Which would've been hard and unbelievably expensive," Susan Whalen said.

Call in Lady Luck. Whalen's rabid-fan status got him a chance to win two tickets on national television.

He was spotted at an NFL Experience event Saturday in Houston by a network representative who asked Dean to prove he was a diehard. He pointed out his attendance at the sub-zero games at Foxboro this winter.

He also directed a producer to his "Touchdown Lounge" Web site, featuring his and his friends' silver-painted panel truck they take to Foxboro - the one with the Patriots logos on the side - and that sealed the deal.

"The producer saw the Web site, and he said, 'He's our guy,'" Susan said.

That led to the appearance yesterday on a short quiz segment during a pre-game show produced by CBS and MTV.

Whalen's opponent for the quiz was a man who claimed to have very little football knowledge. He wasn't exaggerating, Susan said.

"They asked him really simple questions, and he only got one of them," she said in disbelief.

Her husband, on the other hand, had to field questions about, well, Janet Jackson, one of the performers last night. Whalen got two right. Just enough to win.

"We were all very excited," said Susan, who watched the segment on television with her family.

The serendipitous developments didn't solve all her husband and friends' problems, however. Now they had four tickets, but five guys.

"I don't know what happened to the fifth man," she said.

With more luck, another ticket would be found. And, Susan said, anticipating her husband's return today, "Hopefully, the Patriots will win."

They didn't disappoint.