Big kick as Saints march on in wake of Katrina

IT IS a city known for division and recrimination, still recovering after the battering it took from Hurricane Katrina and the damage to its reputation in the aftermath as the aid effort stumbled and the depths of its poverty were exposed.

But now one man – Garrett Hartley – has apparently united the city and allowed it to recover its civic pride. It was Hartley's 40-yard field goal that put New Orleans into the Super Bowl, American football's most prestigious event.

Now the city is at fever-pitch in anticipation of sporting glory when the Saints meet the Indianapolis Colts in Miami's Sun Life stadium next Sunday. And nothing in New Orleans' past quite measures up to what has gone on in the past five days.

"As crazy as we are this year?" considered Jerry Romig, the Saints' announcer for all but two of their 43 seasons. "No."

The Saints' win last Sunday night over the Minnesota Vikings, a victory that sends them to the Super Bowl for the first time, unleashed a raucous, trombone-blaring, grown-man-weeping, stranger-hugging frenzy.

Consider: that night's game prompted the rescheduling of a performance of Verdi's Requiem by the New Orleans Opera Association, and a performance of Keith Lewis and his Blues Revue at the Young at Heart Lounge.

Schools have now cancelled classes for 8 February, the day after the Super Bowl. A civil trial has been postponed. Mardi Gras parades – that mark the beginning of Lent – have been moved. Commander's Palace, the 130-year-old grand dame of New Orleans restaurants, will close on game night, the first time in living memory.

And at least 20 Catholic parishes are rearranging or cancelling evening Mass on Super Bowl Sunday.

Serious people are discussing how much the Super Bowl will affect the turnout in this year's mayoral election, as the primary takes place next Saturday, the day before the game.

"It's more of a problem for candidates who have to build support," said Silas Lee, a pollster, arguing the distraction benefits front-runner, Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu. "It's harder to crack that emotional barrier right now."

Just how much of an effect is debatable, but it is agreed that there will be one. In other words, Hartley's 40-yard goal could have a direct bearing on who governs New Orleans for the next four years.

The Saints' trip to the NFL Super Bowl is more than a respite for a city still trying to recover, though that, of course, is part of it. Saints fans have known more than four decades of irritation, a demoralising span that parallels the city's struggles since its population peak in the 1960 census. Along that timeline lies "white flight", an oil bust, a soaring crime rate, a steady frog-march of corrupt officials, nearly absolute devastation and a frustratingly slow and fitful fight back.

Throughout that run of bad luck and trouble there have been the Saints, usually on the wrong end of the scoreline. Winning has become such a foreign concept that the city hasn't been entirely sure what to do with it.

There was a moment, in mid-December, when it looked as if the Saints could be heading into the playoffs undefeated, when 13-0 was shoe-polished onto rear windows and chalked on signs outside bars and restaurants (and barbershops and grocery stores) from Lakeview to the Lower Ninth Ward. But even before the Saints lost to the Dallas Cowboys last month — and lost the game after that and the game after that — bar-room pundits were already becoming uneasy, discussing the merits of a setback.

A loss would just relax everybody, one older gentleman suggested at a Christmas party in the Trem neighbourhood.

Perfection, anyway, just doesn't sit well in New Orleans, a city whose music and food owe much to improvisation and whose approach to most things in life has historically been rather laissez-faire. Perfection, said Stephen Hales, a paediatrician and a member of the Rex Organisation, an elite Mardi Gras "krewe", is something Dallas or Atlanta would get worked up about.

That is more than just a little dig at intra-conference foes.

New Orleanians are acutely aware of how their city is perceived. They have had to explain to friends after their post-Katrina sojourns in Dallas or Atlanta or Houston — those well-groomed, go-get-'em cities that have flourished in the past few decades — why they wanted to return to a place long associated with crime and corruption.

If you have to ask, you'll never know, according to Louis Armstrong, and most outsiders don't, and it gets frustrating. A football team can't change that, but it can help.

"We have something that we can say, 'Hey that's our team,'" Romig said. "We're not all losers, we've got a winner, we've got a programme here that we're proud of."

It's a common refrain here, that the Saints' victory only showed the world what New Orleans already knew. And a Super Bowl victory on top of that, of course, would be really something

"This is possibly the biggest thing we've ever had," said Ella Brennan, the 84-year-old matriarch of New Orleans restaurateurs. "Just getting there is making us happy. Lord help us if we win."