Saints Fans and Viking Fans Watch Game In Same New York City Bar -WHO DAT!!

I bet that was fun :)

Of all the gritty Manhattan taverns that exiled disciples of the New Orleans Saints would choose to make their own, why did they have to pick the very same East Village watering hole where displaced Minnesota Vikings fans had already staked a claim?

Sunday afternoon afforded plenty of time to chew on such ethnohistorical curiosities — and to wash them down with buckets of Abita beer, spicy bloody marys or a violet vodka concoction called Grape Ape — because kickoff in the National Football Conference title game between the Saints and Vikings wasn’t till 6 p.m.

At Bar None, the line outside on Third Avenue started forming long before noon.
Among the dozens of people waiting along the sidewalk resplendent in purple was Chelsea Seaberg, 25, who said she came for the camaraderie and, if need be, for consolation. Growing up in St. Paul, she said, she was the only football watcher in her family. So when the placekicker Gary Anderson missed a field goal attempt in 1999, costing the Vikings a trip to the

Super Bowl, “I cried alone,” she said.

Now, Ms. Seaberg added cheerfully: “If I get enough liquor in me and they lose, I’ll have a sob-fest with all of these other people. And then I’ll start a support group on

Craigslist tomorrow.”
Inside, in a black-and-gold-bedecked back room, Tara Gremillion, 24, and her three roommates, filled their gullets with a taste of home — Popeye’s chicken. Ms. Gremillion pointed to familiar faces and the Saints banners, jerseys and kitschy knickknacks that hung everywhere — and don’t forget the post-game dance party, with a volunteer D.J. cranking up a play list of New Orleans bounce hip-hop.

“If I can’t be at the Dome, I want to be here,” she said, beaming. “I want to high-five the same people I see every game. I want the same thing, with the same people, every week.”
The Vikings took a 7-0 lead in the first quarter with Adrian Peterson’s 19-yard touchdown run. Vikings fans responded with hugs and high-fives that sent beer splattering onto the bar. Someone blew loudly on a purple plastic horn.

The Saints tied the game later in the quarter when Pierre Thomas took a pass on the right side, weaved through six tacklers and crossed the goal line standing up on a 38-yard play. Howling fans hoisted open black umbrellas in celebration.

“This game is almost as important as the Super Bowl!” exclaimed Chris Collins, 32, a Saints fan who lives in Gramercy Park but grew up in Grand Isle, La. “We have to get past this team.” He got his wish as the Saints beat the Vikings, 31-28.Exactly how all this began is lost to the mists of memory. But local lore — well, hyperlocal lore — has it that Vikings fans first settled in the bar’s front room when Bar None opened in the mid-1990s with a Minnesotan among its proprietors. Not long after, a few New Orleans émigrés colonized the back room.

These days, Saints fans far outnumber Vikings fans, making the back room swelteringly tropical by kickoff; Ted Castator, a devoted Saints fanatic who meticulously decks out the space at 7:15 a.m. every game day, said he expected 200 of his 300 regulars to show up, while only 80 or 90 Vikings fans had R.S.V.P.’d.

Anyone can find out about the bar and its cohabitating cohorts in milliseconds. Jeff Thompson, a waiter whose family lives in Minnesota, and his friend Zinta Saulkalns, a legal writer who has lived in the Big Easy and spends a few months there every year, said they both happened to be looking for places to go to watch their favorite teams at the exact same time.
“She texted me about coming here about a minute after I had found the Web site for this place,” Mr. Thompson said.

The two have been regulars ever since, he in purple, she in black and gold. “We’re not a couple, but we’re a football couple,” Ms. Saulkalns said.

Others had more amorous ambitions. “I’ll be honest, we come for the cute Minnesota boys,” said Caitlin Mohr, who grew up in Minneapolis and moved to New York in 2008 to work at an investment bank. She sat with a girlfriend opposite the bar at a table with a conveniently empty, and welcoming, seat. “We like them big and burly,” she added, scanning the room with a smile.
There were some first-timers, too. Nick and Kelly Osterberg, who live nearly three hours from Minneapolis in Jackson, Minn., flew to New York on Friday for a long weekend to celebrate his 32nd birthday. Their waiter at dinner, Mr. Thompson, recognized their accents and tipped them off about Bar None.

Back home, their rituals involve using a Vikings lighter to light a Vikings candle in an altar next to a Vikings bobblehead.

On the road, Ms. Osterberg, a hairstylist, settled for a mani-pedi substitute. She showed off her purple fingertips. Then she slipped off her boots and socks to reveal toenails in Saints gold

.