Packer Fan Tours In the News
You can survive game day in a non-Packers town
By Nathan Phelps, Green Bay Press Gazette
When you live the shadow of New York City and are faced with Giants, Eagles and Jets, following the Packers isn’t always the easiest prospect.
But when it comes to following the green and gold, Packers’ fans living outside of Wisconsin say they find a way to keep up with their team.
“It’s rough,” said Scott Pauciello who lives is Sayreville, N.J. “I’m in Giants and Eagles country so I get a lot of abuse.”
While his market is inundated with teams from New York, this season he has found a way around that monopoly in his market — satellite radio.
“I think that’s a good route and they have all the games covered,” Pauciello said. “Radio is not what I want, but that’s the best I can get … satellite is a little out of my price range.”
In past years, Pauciello said he followed the team online and by watching games on Fox stations and hoping for game updates and halftime shows that would update him on what was happening.
This season he plans on sitting in his car on Sundays to listen to the Packers.
Through a combination of Web sites, fans like Jon Ocock of Warsaw, Ind., is able to keep up with team news. But in the days before the Internet, it wasn’t that easy for the Appleton native.
“I would go out in my car and listen to the game on AM radio,” he said. “If it was a day game, I could catch it.”
Out-of-state fans said both NFL.com and Packers.com are among the key sites they use for news and scores.
When it comes to watching the games on TV, Ocock said he sees about 10, but it’s tougher for people who don’t live in the Midwest.
Pauciello said he sees maybe six games a year, mainly on Sunday and Monday nights.
“For the past couple of years, I’ve found friends that have satellite dishes,” he said. “And I’ve gotten kind of nice and comfy with them from September to December.”
Out in California, Gary Poliakon has adopted a similar tactic to Pauciello.
“You try to go to any TV that will show it,” Poliakon said with a laugh. “You have to make good friends with people you probably wouldn’t make friends with.”
He also will catch the Packers on the road when they get close enough to his home in the Los Angeles area – that means San Diego, San Francisco or Phoenix.
Last year, Pauciello made it to Green Bay for a game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. He talks about the trip in terms that are akin to making a pilgrimage.
“It’s just a cool team to root for,” Pauciello said. “I’m all about the Packers and that’s all I think about all year.”
Here is more advice for Packers’ fans away from home.
• Use the Internet!
We can’t say that loud enough. The World Wide Web might be the largest collection of porn and subscription drug ads, but it also is the single best clearing house for information on places that are friendly to Packers’ fans.
New for the 2005 regular season, www.PackersNews.com will post a quarter-by-quarter story.
In addition, you can find a tavern to watch a game in or check out a list of radio stations in the Midwest that carry the games.
The Green Bay Packers’ official site (www.packers.com) also has a page dedicated to finding a place to watch a game. The Web site lets fans search by city and state and helps direct wayward cheeseheads to friendly turf.
The other option is to input Packers and your city of choice into your favorite search engine. You can find the web presence of many local fan clubs and their hangouts.
That’s how Jerry Garner, a Green Bay transplant living near Seattle, organizes his group. The Northeast Packer Backers meet at the Mustard Seed Bar and Grill in Bellevue, Wash., every game day to be among fellow Packers fans.
Management at the pub gives the group half of the establishment and group runs specials and raffles throughout the game. The group draws between 100 and 150 people per game, but has had larger crowds for important games.
“If we have overflow, we get the whole bar,” said Garner.
The group isn’t just about the games though. It organizes several charitable efforts and has donated about $10,000 to good causes over the last ten years.
“If we didn’t have this group, I’d have to find a somewhere every week,” Garner said.
The group started a Web site so other people can find them. There’s no other way to find Packers fans easily.
“You can’t just go to a phone book and say “Oh, here you are,” Garner said. “The Internet really makes it possible.”
• Other options
If watching the game in a bar or restaurant is too pedestrian for you — and you happen to be in the city where the Pack is on the road — going to the game is the next best thing.
But it quickly becomes a matter of buyer-beware on many fronts.
Ticket scams are everywhere and even experienced ticket brokers get scammed once in a while.
Dennis Garrity runs Packers Fan Tours in Ashwaubenon and is the ticket agency the team officially refers people to for both home and away games.
When asked for advice on seeing away games, Garrity vainly said “Call us” but qualified that by adding it protects fans from scams while they are traveling.
Aside from planning ahead with Event USA and Packer Fan Tours, Garrity offers the following advice.
1. You’re not likely to get tickets through the team’s ticket office of the city the Packers are playing because Packers’ games — even on the road — are universally sold out.
2. Look in the local newspaper. There are probably tons of people buying and selling tickets in a local newspaper. The concerns? You’re never 100 percent sure you have someone who is legit. Scams don’t happen very often through the newspaper, but it does happen.
3. Going out to the stadium and buying them is a way a lot of people will get tickets at the last minute. Even in Green Bay, there have been instances of people buying stolen or counterfeit tickets at Lambeau Field. So again, it’s buyer-beware.
4. Find another legitimate ticket broker. Find one affiliated with a national organization like the National Association of Ticket Brokers.
• Not everyone likes Packers’ fans
Fans around the league will comment how nice Packers’ fans are to visiting fans. That doesn’t always follow Packers’ fans elsewhere in the league.
Reading pre-game hype gives you only part of the picture, but asking around (ticket brokers and those that work around the stadium) might give you insight into how other stadium’s fans are going to treat incoming cheese heads.
Places where Packers fans frequent — Tampa Bay and San Diego — have been heralded as nice places to see a game. Listening to talk sports radio of the hometown team is another good place to get info about the acceptance of foreign fans.
(Reporter Andy Nelesen contributed to this story.)
— Story updated August 2005 | Source: PackersNews.com