Pats fans gear up: Team's boosters go all-out when game day comes
The Boston Herald

By Marie Szaniszlo

Sunday, January 16, 2005

To football fans, Sundays are sacred.

So having to work today would seem almost a sin if Cindy Rineer didn't work at the Medford Elks Lodge.

``If you have to work,'' she said, ``that's the place to be.''

Rineer tends bar at the lodge, where dozens of Elks will be glued to the tube as the New England Patriots take on the Indianapolis Colts in today's divisional playoff.

In Newburyport, fans on Storey Brooke Drive will head to Tracey Glynn's home, where cheering sections are divided by age and size: Kids watch the game downstairs on a 36-inch television; adults watch the game upstairs on a 52-incher.

``I'm a yeller; I love yelling at the TV,'' said Glynn, an ordinarily serene middle school teacher. ``My father and I will probably be out-screaming each other.''

Carol Donahue is another yeller. You could tell just by looking at her as she prowled the aisles of Super Stop & Shop yesterday in her baby-blue Patriots shirt, stocking up on 2-liter bottles of Sprite and Lays potato chips for the game.

``They're gonna win. No doubt about it,'' said Donahue, who'll watch the game at home in Malden with her 10-year-old daughter Melissa. ``They're just an all-around great team.''

John Skelton, a season-ticket holder who lives in Billerica, will gear up for the game with a handful of other ``lunatic fans'' in the parking lot of Gillette Stadium; just look for the Touchdown Lounge, the 21-foot Grumman Olsen Step van he bought from a carpenter in 2002 and converted into the ultimate Patriots tailgaiting vehicle, complete with wall-mounted television, kitchen, game-day lockers and fully automated, 14-foot field goal post mounted to the roof.

Skelton grew up a Patriots fan, stuck with the team through its lacklustre days in the 1970s and '80s, and has missed only one home game over the last 10 years: opening day of 2000, when he moved his son into college.

``They're the hometown team, they play hard and they're not selfish players,'' he said. ``They're just good-character people who work hard and work together.''