Boy, ya gotta feel so sorry for those folks in Beantown right now.

Victory parades can be so tiresome (can't they Cleveland?), and the poor Bostonians have had to endure seven over the past 10 years with local teams the Patriots (three), Red Sox (two), Celtics (one) and Bruins (one) bringing home the bacon with alarming regularity.

Making streamers and placards and then standing out in the cold for hours just to catch a brief glimpse of the players on a "Duck" must be a horrendous ordeal to go through.

Sadly, the people of The Hub are going to have to do it all again some time later this week after the Pats win their fourth Super Bowl title in Indianapolis tomorrow morning (Beijing time) against the New York Giants.

Sure the Giants have won the past two meetings between the teams including a shock triumph over unbeaten New England in Super Bowl XLII. They folllowed that up a mere four years later with a last-gasp 24-20 victory in Foxborough in Week 6 of this season, but all that has served to do is make Patriots coach and the man who believes he invented American football, Bill Belichick, and his players very, very angry.

That round six loss gave the Patriots a mediocre 5-3 record, while the Giants improved to 6-2.

But, it also served to wake the sleeping AFC behemoth, and New England has not lost a game since. Meanwhile, the New York team that wears blue wobbled home in the regular season, finishing with a 9-7 record before it hit the gas pedal again in the playoffs and emerged as the NFC's surprise representative.

Close followers of this column (thanks, both of you) will remember I tipped before the playoffs started that New England would be turning up for the final game of the season through the cunningly simple logic that the team with the best arm usually wins; and I'm riding on that ground-breaking theory for Super Bowl XLVI or 46 - take your pick.

If Terrific Tom Brady gets the Pats past the Giants it will be his fourth title and put him at the head of the table alongside the great Joe Montana, who played for Kansas City but also did a fair bit of good work with the San Francisco 49ers.

The regular season numbers between Brady and his opponent - another one of those 'Aww Shucks, Ma'am' Manning boys, Eli - are similar. The only thing is that Snappy Tom's are better.

The Patriots' QB completed 65.6 percent of his passes for 5,235 yards (third best in the NFL) with 39 touchdowns and 12 picks. Eli's numbers were 61 percent, 4,933, 29 and 16 - not shabby, but he ain't no Tommy.

Of course, NY will come after Brady like a pack of blue-helmeted pit bulls, but he is a master of the quick dink-and-dunk game to players including pesky receiver Wes Welker, whose 122 receptions this season led the NFL, and tight end Rob Gronkowski, whose 17 touchdowns set a new mark for TEs. "Gronk" is under an injury cloud, but the team's other main TE, Aaron Hernandez, is certainly no slouch.

The Pats' primary concerns will be keeping Brady upright and not letting Manning unleash bombs to his impressive wide receiving corps of Victor Cruz, Hakeem Nicks and Mario Manningham.

If the offensive line holds and the secondary shuts down the NY WRs; the only problem will be for the Boston fans and whether to buy tickertape or make their own.

Tym Glaser is a senior sports copy editor who is a Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins fan and wonders why the heck he ever chose the Raiders over the Patriots. He can be contacted at tymothyg@hotmail.com

(China Daily 02/05/2012 page8)