Chicagoans thank the Bears

FANS COMING HOME FROM MIAMI STILL HIGH ON TEAM

Kim Ross still had plenty of love for the Bears Monday.

After all, the Bears had brought the Bolingbrook woman and her fiance together. The couple got engaged at a Bears-Vikings game earlier in the season and flew to Miami to see the Super Bowl.

On Monday, Ross, 26, flew back to O'Hare Airport. She was worn out but still decked out in orange and blue.

"We played a good game," she said, waiting for her luggage. "If we were going to lose to anyone, we're glad it was the Colts."

Just seeing the Bears make it to the Super Bowl was enough for J.C. Gonzalez-Mendez, 47, of St. Charles.

"We shouldn't be sad. We should be happy we made it," said the McDonald's executive, returning from Miami with his wife Deborah and 12-year-old son Carlos, whose orange Bears cap, autographed by several members of the 1985 team, barely left his head all weekend.

"It's still wet," Deborah Gonzalez-Mendez said.

Kyle Savino planned to watch the game all over again once he got back to his northwest Indiana home. The physical therapist didn't have tickets to the game but flew down to Miami anyway with his friend and boss, Dave Franklin. They golfed, hung out on the beach and ended up watching the game at Finnegan's Way, a South Beach bar they said was an unofficial bar-away-from-home for other visiting Bears fans.

"It was like a Bears home game," Savino said.

"It was electric," Franklin said.