Pittsburgh Steelers win Super Bowl 2009 ~

 

I feel bad for Kurt Warner, coach Ken Whisenhunt and the Arizona Cardinals. They were the underdogs and came so close to winning. Everyone was sure they had won the Super Bowl with only a few minutes remaining. I don’t know what a safety is but I watch every year and I can declare with certainty that this was an exciting game. Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Steelers on their 6th World Championship!

The Koreans are also cheering the win. Hines Ward, the Steelers’ wide receiver, is half-Korean and was born in Seoul. Btw, is it my imagination but has Ben Roethlisberger’s face not recovered from his motorcycle accident?

 

Super Bowl XLIII at Raymond James Stadium, Tampa

Pre-game show… Jennifer Hudson’s rendition of the Star-Spangled banner was moving, especially bearing in mind what she has gone through the past year with the murder of her mother, brother and seven-year-old nephew. I wouldn’t have been able to bear it and would have broken down in front of such a big audience, but instead she poured her heart into her singing of the national anthem. (UPDATE: Turns out she lip-synched at the insistence of the show’s producer.)

Sully (real name: Chesley Sullenberger), who helped land the US Airways plane on the Hudson river, was there with the rest of the crew of Flight 1549. And! General Petraeus received as loud a welcome from the crowd. The commander of Central Command looked awestruck to be at Super Bowl as he did the coin toss.

Half-time show with the Boss and the E Street Band. Bruce Springsteen, who’s 59 years old, did a knee slide into a camera. It was a very rousing performance. (But someone on Twitter revealed that she found him to have a very bloated ego when she met him. His public person is so wholesome though.) Anyway, he changed the lyrics of Glory Days for the Super Bowl. Baseball player became football player. Speed ball became a Hail Mary… Cool.. Steven Van Zandt was there wearing his bandana, course.

Super Bowl ads:

The first one that caught my attention was Hyundai. So they’re teaching us that it rhymes with Sunday… Then there was Jake the Clydesdale, which was okay. I’ve never liked any of Career Builder’s ads.

Cash4gold.com with Ed McMahon got a lot of reaction from Twitterers because MC Hammer has an official Twitter account. I liked the NFL ad with the Saints player and his dad — the one about his selling Sno-Cones when he was a kid. E-Trade ads with the talking baby are always cute. The one I liked best was the Hulu ad with Alec Baldwin in it. So smart.

Pennsylvania native Joe Namath, celebrating the 40th anniversary of his Super Bowl win leading the New York Jets in Super Bowl III, came out with the Vince Lombardi trophy. He looked in great shape! Wise and spiffy in suit and wearing glasses.

Commish Goodel presented the trophy to team owner Dan Rooney, who thanked Obama. Head coach Mike Tomlin, the youngest to coach in the Super Bowl, thanked the Steeler nation. Age? He’s just 36 years old.

Super Bowl MVP: wide receiver Santonio Holmes who scored the game’s winning touchdown with less than a minute left in regulation. Redemption after all his legal troubles.

Mmm… intrigued by the life story of Kurt Warner… how he was once a grocery bagger…

Game very well played, both teams!