"This is our year," said Ryan Stonebraker, owner of the Ah Barista Cafe, which is across the street from the RCA Dome and has Colts wide receiver Brandon Stokley among its customers. "We're at home. We're stronger than we've ever been. The defense is playing better. Peyton [Manning] is going to come through. He needs this win. We need this win.
"This is the game we've wanted for a long time. I feel it. The whole town does."
Stonebraker, 32, is so confident in his Colts that he had the team's horseshoe logo cut into the hair on the back of his head Monday night.
Make no mistake: This city, the 12th-largest in the country with a population of approximately 784,000, is ready to host its first AFC Championship game. The game is Yankees-Red Sox big here and receiving hype befitting such a matchup.
Indianapolis has hosted five NCAA men's basketball Final Fours, but that didn't stop the local CBS affiliate, WISH-TV, from billing Patriots-Colts as "the biggest single game in Indianapolis sports history."
Tickets sold out in less than 10 minutes on Monday, and more than 1,500 fans waited outside the RCA Dome in the rain just for the chance to buy them. Sales of team apparel at the Colts Pro Shop at the Circle Centre Mall were up 60 percent, according to saleswoman Kim Crowe. There are signs in storefronts and banners downtown, but nothing that would offend Midwestern sensibilities.
"We're a big city with a small-time atmosphere," said Dorene Wittlief, the manager of Berkshire Florist, which had five small horseshoe logo stickers on its storefront windows on Market Street, including one that said, "Believe in Blue."
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"It's payback time," said Andrew Bridges of Noblesville, Ind., an employee at Ah Barista.
Mentioning the Patriots here is like mentioning the Yankees in Boston; the name elicits immediate enmity and disgust.
"They're just one of those teams you love to hate," said Crowe.
