New York celebrates Super Bowl win with parade

By Edith Honan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Confetti rained down on a sea of New York Giants blue on Tuesday as fans celebrated the team's surprising Super Bowl victory with a parade up New York City's fabled "Canyon of Heroes."

The Giants produced a 17-14 upset victory in the American football championship game on Sunday that denied the New England Patriots a perfect 19-0 season and gave New York its first NFL crown in 17 years.

Thousands of cheering fans, many dressed in the Giants' blue and white, lined the parade route, up Broadway in the financial district. Others leaned out office windows and showered the unlikely champions with confetti, torn newspaper and toilet paper.

Previous parades for championship teams in New York have generated about 50 tons of waste paper, city officials said.

"This is monumental. Just to have the opportunity in this lifetime or at least in this decade to bring the new year in this way," said fan Dewayne Ford, 25.

It was the first parade on the Canyon of Heroes route since baseball's New York Yankees won the World Series in 2000. Past parades have honored foreign heads of state, returning astronauts and war heroes, such as Gen. Dwight Eisenhower.

This was a parade widely expected to be held in Boston, but the Giants broke the hearts of confident New England fans.

Many fans chanted "18 and 1," underscoring the lone blemish on the Patriots' final record.