New York Giants Touchdown After Winning Super Bowl

As many as 1 million spectators may turn out for the traditional ticker-tape parade hosted by New York City, according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office. The team will travel to MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, later in the day to celebrate its 21-17 Super Bowl victory against the New England Patriots. The Giants also beat the Patriots to win the Super Bowl following the 2007 season.

“I’m excited for the young guys and the guys who have not experienced it, whether they are veterans or not,” Giants coach Tom Coughlin said yesterday.

“Heartwarming doesn’t quite cover this, what you go through and what your feelings are,” he added. “When you are looking down the side streets, and there’s people forever down those side streets, and they’re all there because they are taking ownership of their team.”

The festivities begin today at 11 a.m. New York time at Battery Place and Washington Street.

The parade will continue northbound up the mile-long Canyon of Heroes, where Charles Lindbergh, Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Apollo moon astronauts were feted in years past, as were the New York Yankees’ World Series champions. The Giants also celebrated their last title in the Canyon of Heroes five seasons ago, when 36 1/2 tons of confetti showered down from windows in buildings along the route.

Giants players and coaches rode slow-moving flatbed trailers and open-roof buses at the 2008 Super Bowl parade. Numerous players held video cameras to capture the event and some jumped off the trailers to shake hands and sign autographs with fans, who packed the sidewalks five and six deep.

The parade will be followed by a ceremony at City Hall Plaza, at which Mayor Bloomberg will present the Giants with keys to the city. Bloomberg said the parade may have an economic impact on the city of $19 million to $38 million, as between 500,000 and 1 million spectators are expected, with about one-third of attendees from outside New York City.

Lisa Wheeler and her husband, Stephen, yesterday drove seven hours from their home in Chesapeake, Virginia, to bring their sons, 9-year-old Austin and 6-year-old Ryan, to the parade. The couple is following through on a promise they made to their young Giants fans early in a playoff run during which the team upset the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers on the road before knocking off the favored Patriots.

“We’ve learned to be careful what you promise because they will hold you to it,” said Lisa Wheeler, 38. “They are thrilled and we can’t wait to see it through their eyes.”

There was a public sweepstakes for half of the 500 spots available for the City Hall ceremony and 49,483 people entered to win tickets. The costs of the parade in New York City will be offset by the official sponsors, the mayor’s office said.

Following the ceremony at City Hall, the Giants will board buses and return to New Jersey to celebrate at their home stadium. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will be among those honoring the team, which scored the final 12 points in the Super Bowl two days ago to rally from a 17-9 deficit.

Ahmad Bradshaw scored the winning touchdown with 57 seconds left, giving the Giants their fourth Super Bowl title. The Giants, who had a 7-7 record in December, won their final six games, including four straight in the postseason, to become the first Super Bowl champion with seven losses.

“We never changed our goal,” Coughlin said yesterday.“We never changed our attitude about what had to be accomplished and what we had to do. This is a great statement to our players as well as to our mental toughness.”

The game at Indianapolis’s Lucas Oil Stadium was seen by an average of 111.3 million people, the biggest audience in U.S. television history, according to Comcast Corp.’s NBC network. It was seen in an average of 47 percent of U.S. homes