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Saturday, February 04, 2006

Town's alive

Detroit woke up big time Friday night as thousands of fans from Pittsburgh made the five hour drive to get here, apparently even if they didn't have tickets.

The downtown area was a mess. There were people everywhere and it was impossible to get into any of the establishments.

I guess it was good for the city, but bad for those who weren't lucky to be there early. Oh well.

One of the few Seattle fans I saw was walking in front of us when he turned around, raised his hands in the air and screamed, "Seahawks!" One of my friends gave him a half-hearted "Seahawks" back and the guy looked like somebody had beaten his dog.

"Come on guys," he said.

It was a lonely night for Seattle fans.

Thursday night, my hotel parking lot was empty. Friday, it was full. Today, it's overflowing.

The big news among the reporters was how badly USA Today's Chris Colston blew the Troy Polamalu injury. Colston is the pool reporter who has been covering the Steelers' practices. During the season, the local reporters are allowed to watch practice. At the Super Bowl, only one reporter is permitted to watch each team's practice and then he is supposed to do a report.

Colston apparently only watched the early portion of practice the other day and missed Polamalu getting injured. Reporters who cover practice regularly know that you watch the end of practice. Even if you miss seeing the guy get injured, you can count heads to make sure everybody is practicing.

Polamalu, by the way, is fine.

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