This is a testament to how deep we’ll dig for a post during the lockout. Remember the Bears’ 2007 trip to the NFC Championship? You know, the game they WON over the New Orleans Saints, sending them to Super Bowl XLI? Most Bears fans will remember that game very fondly. You know who won’t? New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and not because his New Orleans Saints lost the game.
It turns out that Nagin and his entourage acquired tickets to the game through a New Orleans vendor, who purchased the tickets from Casey Urlacher, the Scrappy Doo to Brian Urlacher’s Scooby. The problem is that the tickets turned out to be invalid.
"A New Orleans technology contractor said he bought suite tickets for Mayor Ray Nagin and his wife for the 2007 NFC Championship Game at Soldier Field that turned out to be invalid, the company’s executive testified in a corruption trial.Ciber Inc. president Ed Burns said he bought the tickets from Brian Urlacher’s brother Casey, but the tickets turned out to be from the previous year’s playoff game. Casey Urlacher denied Burn’s story through a lalwyer. Nagin and his party at first were denied entrance outside a frigid Soldier Field but ultimately were allowed into a Bears’ suite, where many of them had to stand throughout the game."
The mayor’s party, which flew to Chicago on a private plane on that cold, January day and proceeded to Soldier Field in a fleet of Town Cars, only to be left outside. They did finally manage to get into a Bears suite, but they’d have been better off turning around and going home. The Bears won the game and headed to the Super Bowl while Reggie Bush and Co could only manage this flip for their excitement.