After a long trip I finally returned back to the islands tonight a few hours ago. The plane travel was insane we took four flights to get back home beginning at around 3 a.m. Hawaii time and finally arriving in Honolulu at 10 p.m. I also got sick this morning, which for all of you who haven’t been sick on a plane, it’s not very fun at all.
Traveling to New Orleans overall was definitely worth the experience even though the game obviously went about as bad as it could go. There is a lot to write about so i figured i’d break it into sections, i was going to go in chronological order but i figure most people want to know about the game itself and the Sugar Bowl experience.
Warrior fans in the Big Easy
I’ve got to say, i was 100% pleased with the amount of Hawaii fans i saw fly up for the game. In the airports, on the streets, in the hotels, anywhere I went i consistently saw Warrior fans. In fact for the first two days i was there (29th and 30th) i saw a lot more Hawaii fans than Georgia fans. During the evenings the main Hawaii hang out appeared to be Jonny White’s on Bourbon Street, as well as this other hangout which has slipped my mind for the moment. I saw many familiar faces on Bourbon including the Advertiser’s Stephen Tsai who threw me my first pair of beads! (Thanks Steven! and don’t worry i didn’t flash him) I also saw Vili multiple times as well as Leila Wei and Kanoa Leahy. Warrior fans were very friendly as well, walking through the streets we often talked to random fans in Warrior gear. The local businesses seemed pleased as well, as most of the Hawaii merchandise seemed to fly off the shelf.
The Sugar Bowl Experience
We left from our hotel to walk towards the Superdome around mid afternoon so that we could hang out for a while at the pre-game fan fest. Once there, the fest was a whole lot of fun, there was a live band which played on stage while many Hawaii fans danced to the music. Around the dome itself there were promotional giveaways namely Hawaii athletic bags and taco bell hats. Later the Hawaii marching band along with the cheerleaders and dancers performed where the live band performed earlier. I went up close and it was a lot of fun, much more excitement then the pep rally a few days earlier. Georgia’s band also did a performance shortly after but i was already walking towards the gates of the dome.
Once in the dome, it was an amazing site to see. The Superdome is simply beautiful. It’s huge first of all, but oddly doesn’t look much higher than Aloha Stadium when you are on the inside. They have some really good food vendors there with fresh sandwiches made right in front of you. There is also a lounge which is similar to a luxury food court. They have food vendors inside along with many tables with leather seating. We then walked to our seats in section 323 and the seats were great. We weren’t sure how good they would be but it was equivalent to sitting in one of the orange end zones at aloha stadium. Even the seats high up in the dome didn’t look very bad. The white-out from Hawaii showed much better than the Black-out of Georgia and it was surreal to see how many Hawaii fans filled the dome. We happened to be in the section doing the “Hawaii” and “Believe” signs as well. I helped the organizers tape the different colors to the seats but for some reason by game time many rows were still unfilled. A bunch of fans tried to spread out and hold two signs at a time but were still not sure if the words even showed.
The Game itself
I was so excited about this game. From the pregame fanfest i was practically jumping in my clothes waiting for it to start. The opening kickoff was brilliant and the Hawaii section basically erupted with excitement. After that however, everyone pretty much knows what happened. The fans tried to support the team throughout the game, my voice was gone after the first quarter and that hasn’t happened since the BYU game a few years back at Aloha Stadium. Simply put, Georgia was the better team on that night. I disagree with coach McKnight’s assessment that their line wasn’t any faster than other lines. The Georgia defensive line, in my opinion, was the fastest i’ve ever seen. They didn’t seem very large and at first Hawaii was able to block their speed but it soon became evident that Colt was going to have a rough night. How our offensive line would perform was my biggest concern coming in to this game, it’s really no secret our tackles have been getting blown by from speedy defenders since the middle of the season.
Georgia came in with a good gameplan, i thought it was genius of them to begin the game throwing, as Hawaii seemed mainly set up for the run. It soon became apparent they would be able to run just as effectively. On defense as said earlier they kept pressure on Brennan which is really the only way to slow Hawaii down.
I’m not saying this decided the game, but i also thought the game was very poorly officiated. Colt i thought was roughed a few times when the ball was clearly released. Early on in the game on i believe the second kickoff Georgia did a clear late hit penalty away from the ball (they didn’t show this on TV by the way, it was far towards the opposite sideline) the referee threw the flag then later waved it off. I simply couldn’t understand that interpretation. Delay of game calls were missed at least twice during the night, once on a key georgia third down conversion. As for the challenges i cannot say, the one downside of the Superdome and the Sugar Bowl was they did a horrible job of showing replays to the crowd. Even on our side, one of our players called a timeout when we had zero left and though the referees stopped play no penalty was accessed. I’m not going to even try to pretend Georgia wouldn’t have left with a victory even if these calls were made correctly but a handful of them were key and could have affected momentum.
I definitely thought Hawaii had its opportunities, down 24-3 at the Half i still thought we would come back and win, the defense got a three and out stop but our offense just couldn’t find it’s groove. It was purely tragic that Colt had to end his days here the way he did, after he got hurt, it was clearly obvious he didn’t want to leave the game but the trainers did the wise thing and forced him to. Regardless of this performance, Colt is a great person and a great player. You can’t blame the guy too much with the amount of pressure he had on him throughout the night. It was a rough night, there is not much more to say, but to Colt and the rest of the team I couldn’t be more grateful for the hours of hard work they have all put in to deliver Warrior fans this great season.
After the game we went to the Marriott to see the team return on their buses. Many other fans filled the lobby and cheered the team on as they entered the hotel. It was obvious that many of them were still down from the game but it was a nice show of appreciation from the Warrior fans who flew thousands of miles to support their team. Colt stopped to shake hands with a little boy and other players posed momentarily for pictures and autographs.
Phew for now i’m beat, sorry if this blog is a little all over the place but i wanted to get something online as soon as possible. I’ll add more later about the food, new years eve, georgia fans and all that a little later. I don’t know who we have reading this blog yet but if anyone out there has questions please feel free to leave comments and i’ll answer anything i can. New Orleans overall was an experience i’ll never forget, we didn’t get the sweet ending we all so dearly wanted to taste however this team is one we will remember forever.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Who is the voice?
RSS 2.0
