Super Sunday means Conn. houses divided

While the teams will play Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis, Connecticut may be the place that has seen more trash talking, friendly and not-so-friendly wagers, tales of past glories and arguments over coming results than any other state in the Union.

Where else on Earth are fans more divided than in Connecticut, sandwiched between the Foxboro, Mass., home of the New England Patriots and the East Rutherford, N.J., home of the New York Giants? While this rivalry still has a way to go to match the passion of Red Sox-Yankees, it is building.

Giants' fans could not have enjoyed the first few years of the new football century when the New England Patriots dominated the National Football League, winning three of four Super Bowls behind Bill Belichick, a former Giants' assistance. Then came 2008 and Super Bowl XLII, when the Giants inflicted the most painful loss on the Patriots in their history, upsetting the undefeated 18-0 New England team 17-14 and denying it an historic perfect season.

Now the Patriots fans want revenge, while Giants fans expect a victory that will reassert their team as the region's dominant franchise.

In some ways, the Giants-Patriots rivalry is more complex than its baseball counterpart.

While support for the Giants grows with proximity to the New York border, and conversely Patriots fidelity is greatest in the eastern half of Connecticut - matching the Yankees-Sox predilection - there are factors other than geography in play.

Until 1960, when the then-Boston Patriots became one of the charter members of the new American Football League, the New York Giants were the closest NFL team to New England and so had many fans here. Those Giants won four pre-Super Bowl NFL titles from 1927 through 1956, which are exactly four more championships than the Red Sox won over that same period.

This history helps account for the many divided households in Connecticut where family allegiances will clash on Super Sunday. The arrival of a new team in a new league does not easily dislodge loyalty cemented by success. In some families that Giants support has persisted generation to generation, while in others children and grandchildren have instead turned to New England's team, a process accelerated by its success over the past decade.

Then there is Hartford and Montville. Patriots' owner Robert Kraft may be much beloved in Massachusetts for buying and rescuing the Patriots in 1993 when the team appeared destined to move, but some Connecticut officials have seen Mr. Kraft's tougher business side.

In the late 1990s he signed a deal with then-Gov. John G. Rowland to move his team to Hartford, providing leverage that helped him get the deal he wanted from Massachusetts to build his new stadium in Foxboro. His agreement with Rowland had astutely left plenty of escape clauses. Montville, meanwhile, waged a long and bitter legal fight with Mr. Kraft over the quality of the water the town supplied to his Rand-Whitney Containerboard plant there. The town is still paying off the $11.7 million judgment against it.

We've met more than a few people who say they could never root for the Patriots because the shrewd Mr. Kraft got the better of these legal clashes.

So while there may be plenty of interesting story lines in Indianapolis - Eli Manning vs. Tom Brady; will the ankle of Patriots Pro Bowl tight end Rob Gronkowski sufficiently heal; can the Giants receivers shred a porous Patriots pass defense - there will also be plenty of interesting clashes in Connecticut homes.

Pass the chips.