Top 10 Season Ticket Holder Banner Moments

My most memorable Celtics Moment was the triple overtime with Phoenix in the 1976 Championship game. I was 13 and because the game went beyond my bedtime, I was hiding under the sheets listening on a transistor radio. I thought I was being really sly, but many years later my Mom informed me that she knew what I was doing and let it slide for a couple of reasons. First, because she had just gotten a divorce and was raising three boys on her own and she was trying to be like a Dad and not a Mom at that moment.

Second, she knew how big a fan I was and still am. I still remember when that final second ticked off the clock, I screamed into the pillow so I wouldn't be heard. Little did I know that my Mom knew the whole time what I was doing. So for me that moment has a special place in my heart for multiple reasons.

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My Banner Moment: Game 6, Celtics vs. Lakers (Banner 17). My favorite Celtics memory was seeing the enjoyment of my only son Sean, who was home on leave. He is a Marine and loves the Celtics as much my husband and I do. I gave my ticket to him so that he could attend the game with his father. As I watched our team win on TV at home, tears of joy streamed down my face. I greatly wanted to be there with my son and husband, and for a moment wished I had gone myself. But I knew I had done the right thing, for Sean would be leaving for Afghanistan and I wanted him to have a good memory. I would do it all over again, and loved seeing the video that they recorded on their cell phones of confetti floating through the air. My son was so excited upon returning home and admitted that he would never have given up the opportunity to see that game. However, it was a sacrifice I was willing to make; it was the least I can do when he is fighting for our country's freedom. Hopefully, there will be a Banner 18 in my lifetime and we will share the moment together.

As a 55 year old diehard Celtics fan (think Johnny Most on the transistor radio under my pillow) and a 32 year season ticket holder, starting out with my brother Peter in the hot, thin air of the second balcony in the Old Garden ($2.50/ticket!), I have many special Banner Moments. If forced to choose however, I would have to go with Tuesday, June 12, 1984, the night the Celtics clinched Banner 15 against the LA Lakers. This was the only Celtics Championship win vs. Los Angeles in the Bird era and the lone conquest of the Lakers during the 39 years between the Russell era's last victory in 1969 and that of the Big 3 in 2008.

By Game 7, Hendo had already "stolen the ball" and Magic had inexplicably dribbled out the clock during regulation of the Game 2 OT victory to prevent the C's from going back to LA down 0-2. Game 7 was the second "heat game" with temperatures hovering in the 90s inside the old building. The Celtics held off a late Laker rally to go to 8-0 in Series Finals against their archrivals. When the game ended, fans rushed the court swallowing up Bird and his victorious teammates. I took this all in with my brother Peter and my best friend Howie, perched in our seats in Section 88 Row AA, formerly the old press box, with Johnny Most high above courtside broadcasting just above us.

Seated directly below at midcourt in the second row, among the players' wives and girlfriends were Howie's wife Susie and my wife Judy, pregnant with our twins who were born exactly 2 weeks later. In the post-game frenzy, I observed security guards apparently believing Judy was a player's wife, sweep her up and usher her into the safety of the World Champion Boston Celtics' locker room celebration. Thus I tell my children David & Sarah that they were reveling in Celtics Championship victories even before they were born!

My favorite memories of the Celtics are all about family connections. In 1965, when I was eight years old, there were no bigger fans than my Dad and me. We would watch any game on TV and he took me to my first game, Russell vs. Chamberlain. But the games I remember most are the two Finals games from Los Angeles. They were during the week and school was still in session and the games started late for a second grader. So Dad had an idea, I would go to bed right after supper and he would wake me just before the game started. The two of us would watch until late at night and then get up early to go to work and school. That cementing of the father son bond never cracked and we watched hundreds of games together before he died in 1991.

I now attend games with my 14 year old daughter and have been taking her to the Garden since her first game at age 3. I hope that following my father's example that I can also use Celtics basketball as a way of creating fond memories for my daughter of time spent with her dad as I have of spending those late nights with mine.

From a very young age I've been a diehard Celtics fan. I was lucky enough to have a dad who had season tickets and was able to attend more than my fair share of games growing up. I saw the pigeon fly around the Garden during Bird's last home game, ran onto the parquet to kiss the leprechaun on the final night of the Boston Garden, and at 10 years old joined in the angry chants for the first time after a ref's horrible call. My parents got divorced, we moved to Maine and my dad had to sell the tickets. It was a huge blow losing the tickets, not because I wouldn't be seeing the Celtics live, but because going to a game and was my dad and my thing. From parking in the 'secret spot' down a side street to avoid the parking fees, to getting a sausage sub outside on the street prior to every game (that left all my Celtics gear with at least one mustard spot), it was all great.

In early 2008, the Celtics announced that they would be selling playoff strips for all games. While it seemed like it was too good to be true because it was a limited quantity, I figured I would give it a shot. They went on sale at 10am and I had a test at 11:25. I started calling at 9:55 and of course I was greeted by a busy signal . . .over and over again. At 11:20, just as I was walking into the classroom, all of a sudden the phone rang and I almost hung up because I was so shocked. So finally after calling 1,152 times I was through to a representative who said there were three sets of tickets remaining and I quickly jumped on the opportunity. I have always been a big dreamer and for the next several weeks I would always bring up...imagine if it is Celtics-Lakers and I get to go. My roommates would respond with "yeah and if I won the powerball it would be sweet too."

When the playoffs came, I wore my Celtics wig and my KG #5 t-shirt every game without washing it because I wasn't going to jinx anything. Jumping all the way to Game 5 of the NBA Finals, I sat in my living room with my dad on Father's Day watching the game. As much as I wanted a Championship, I wanted to be there that much more. The Celtics lost that game, and when it ended and I gave my dad his Father's Day card and it read "I know I can never repay you for the hundreds of games you have brought me to or the obsession you have created by starting me off as a fan so early, but here is a ticket that could provide the greatest experience imaginable for two people who have countless memorable moments related to the Celtics." At Game 6 . . .dreams came through, the Celtics had just beaten the Lakers for their 17th Championship and I finally got to thank my dad for getting me started in this crazy game as we waved our hands back and forth, singing "We Are the Champions," enjoying a moment I will never forget for the rest of my life. I save every ticket stub from all the games I have been to in a box, but this ticket stub is framed and hung on the wall.

My absolute favorite Banner Moment would be when I took my father to his first Celtics Playoff game. My dad was 74 years old and a lifelong Celtics fan and had been to many games in his lifetime. The one thing he never had done was experience playoff basketball. He had just recovered from Cancer Surgery, radiation and also chemotherapy and was finally feeling better.

His first playoff game? Game 7 vs. the Cleveland Cavaliers. I could have never in a million years picked a better, more epic game for my father to go to. To this day, all my father talks about is what a great experience that was and how awesome it was to be there watching Pierce vs. LeBron, and having Red "tap" the ball into the rim.

My favorite Celtics memory is one of my first. 1991 was the first year I had a great recollection of the team as I was a kindergarten student at Walnut Park Montessori. I remember the game very well and still watch my old VHS copy of it until this day. The wily old Celtics were battling hard with the upstart Indiana Pacers, and looked as if they were on the brink. Disaster struck when their team leader and future Hall of Famer Larry Bird hit his head on the floor diving for a loose ball. Chuck Person's Indiana Pacers seemed poised for an upset, and it looked as if the curtain was to finally fall on the famed Big Three. But Bird made one of the most dramatic returns in the history of professional basketball, coming back in the third quarter. He entered the game, hit many key baskets including a baseline fade away while being fouled, and the Celtics hung on and moved on to the next round to face their old nemesis -- Detroit. Bird's courageous return is my Banner Moment because it represented everything we fans experience with basketball's most fabled franchise -- heart, desire, passion, the will to win. It embodied the spirit of the Celtics, and the spirit of the city of Boston.

After the 5th game of the 1965 Eastern Conference Finals, the series that ended with Havlicek stealing the ball, my parents, my brother and I were in our car leaving the Garden when we noticed Mendy Rudolph, one of the officials for the game that day, out on the street trying to hail a cab to the airport. It was a rainy, miserable day, so we pulled over and offered him a ride to Logan, which he accepted. It sounds strange today, but after several years of being season ticket holders, my parents felt like they knew Mendy.

He got in the back seat next to me and we all began a pleasant - and candid - conversation about the game, which the Celtics had won. After a few minutes the conversation turned to John Havlicek, my mother's favorite new player and, as it turned out, her favorite of all time. Toward the end of the game Mendy had made a controversial (for Celtics fans) call against Havlicek to which my mother had taken great exception. She was a gentle and polite person that generally abhorred confrontation of any kind, but as the conversation went on, this particular call apparently continued to bother her until finally she turned around, looked directly at Mendy and in a tone in which she could have been expressing her distaste for a convicted killer said: "You seem like such a nice person, I just can't imagine how you could have made such a horrible call against poor Johnny Havlicek!"

I am not sure who in the car was most surprised at that moment; I don't think any of us had ever heard my mother confront a stranger like that, and I am pretty sure Mendy was in unfamiliar territory, trapped as he was in the back seat of a car with 2 kids and confronted by an otherwise sane woman who could not get over the horrible thing that he had done to her favorite player. After a few moments, during which there was not a sound in the car except the sound of the windshield wipers, Mendy tried to politely respond as best he could, but he was back on his heels for the rest of the ride. When we dropped him off, we all wished him well, but I am sure he was greatly relieved that the airport was so close to the Garden. I gained a whole new level of appreciation for my mother that day but, even more, it was the moment I came to understand what it meant to be a true Celtics fan.