On Thursday Dolfans NYC threw a big Halloween party and the Dolphins won in miraculous fashion as Cam Wake sealed the game with only the third overtime safety in NFL history. Another great half was wasted with another poor third quarter but Ryan Tannehill made the plays he had to make to lead the team to a game tying field goal with seconds left in regulation. When the safety happened Slattery’s Midtown Pub erupted and we had free shots all around. The Dolphins broke the Bengals winning streak and ended their own losing streak and we partied.

We had DJ Tropic DJ again and he killed it all night. We had a costume contest as the three finalists battled it out via Instagram to see who would get the most likes. Mr. McGibblets out beat Ricky Williams by one vote and Joe Philbin came in a distant third. I loved the Philbin costume but after four straight losses he didn’t get a lot of love. My pajama wearing “Tired Of Losing” costume got the most votes but of course I was not eligible and Mr. McGibblets walked away with a hat signed by OJ McDuffie and Sam Madison. Mr. McGibblets also promised he would be coming to our #MetLifeTakeover on Dec 1st in full costume!

The next Dolphins game is a Monday night game against the Bucs and we will be having DJ Tropic in the house again as well as a huge raffle. We also will have our new DolfansNYC hats for sale again. I hope you guys get a chance to pick one up. Hope to see you guys then.

And lastly, before we get to the pictures I wanted you guys to check this video from the “Miami Dolphins Web Weekend” that the Dolphins posted on their site. DolfansNYC got a lot of love in it and special mention of the $3000 we donated to the Miami Dolphins Foundation. Thanks to you guys for our opportunity to do so much in the way of charitable donations!

Now check out the Halloween party photos from Slattery’s Midtown Pub below. Double click to open em in a new window so you can save them to your computer!

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For the last ten years the Miami Dolphins have invited a group of Miami Dolphins fans who run websites down to Miami. I am one of four people who have been to all ten of them. I used to run another Dolphins website that no one ever read but somehow the Dolphins found me. We would go down every year and I just would update my site enough to keep getting invited.  Around year four I met the 2 Michelle’s, two girls from NYC who had a Dolphins blog. I started watching games with them and after Tall Michelle moved Short Michelle and I founded DolfansNYC.

Last year was a really big one for us. We donated a ton of money to the Miami Dolphins foundation and ended up winning a “Webby Award’ for best community website. We also used the opportunity to reach out to other Dolphins fan sites and raise even more money for hurricane Sandy relief efforts. It was a pretty amazing trip.

This year was even better for us. We won the community webby again and we ended up raising $3000 already this year that we donated to the Miami Dolphins Foundation. We also donated another $300 to two Dolphins Cycling Challenge riders who are doing a bike ride to raise money for the Sylvester Cancer Center at the University of Miami. We gave Joe Philbin, Sam Madison and OJ McDuffie DolfansNYC shirts and OJ told us he might wear it to our #MetLifeTakeover event on December 1st! He posted a photo of himself wearing it on Twitter too!

We also got to meet Brandon Fields and John Denny who signed some stuff for us to raffle off and we also had John Offerdahl sign some stuff too. He spoke to us and promoted his Gridiron Grill Off which you should check out if you are in South Florida. That guy is always hilarious but he had just come from a food and wine festival and had a few drinks in him and he was so so funny. All of us were dying. That guy is a legend.

The highlight of the trip for us was when we presented new CEO Tom Garfinkel our Miami Dolphins Foundation donation. He seemed genuinely moved and invited us to his suite to watch the game. We were honored and got to watch the game at the 45 yard line with free food and 2 Live Crew’s Luther Campbell sitting a few feet from us. We talked to a bunch of the Dolphins marketing staff and they had told us that they were big fans of what we were doing in NYC and we had come up in meetings. We spoke to Mr. Garfinkel a little more in detail about what we were doing as well. The whole thing was pretty amazing.

In the end the game turned out very poorly and sadly we left Miami with a bitter tastes in our mouths but looking back in a few years we won’t remember this one loss to the Bills, but we will remember the experience and how we took another step towards taking NYC back from the Jets fans! DolfansNYC over everything!

Hope to see you guys tomorrow at Slattery’s Midtown Pub to watch the Patriots game. Win or lose we will have a ton of fun and we will have new DolfansNYC hats for sale! Phins up!

Check out our photos from Web Weekend X below!

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On Monday we had a huge party at Slattery’s Midtown Pub! The Dolphins were playing great football for 28 minutes before it all went to hell right before the two minute warning, but such is life. It’s a long season and you aren’t going to win every game. Fortunately, even with the loss Dolfans NYC had a great time. We had one of our original founding members DJ Tropic spin during commercials and it worked out really well. Even late in the game we were at least enjoying the music, food and the company. People stuck around and even celebrated and sang the fight song on the garbage time TD. I also noticed a ton of rational positivity on our Facebook page. It’s great to be around Phins fans who aren’t screaming Fireland this and Tannehill sucks that. I really love this group.

Both floors of the bar were packed. It’s great to see so many people show up when the game is on TV. We have really made an event of it. We had a big raffle and sold t-shirts and ended up raising over $1200 for charity. It was really amazing. The two big prizes in the raffle were a Bob Griese signed hat and another hat signed by Tannehill, Hartline, Jimmy Wilson and Austin Spitler. Two cool things happened with that. Our member Bryan who had donated the Tannehill/Hartline hat actually won the Griese hat. It was great to see since not only has he been a big supporter of the club but he also lost 90% of his Dolphins memorabilia collection in Hurricane Sandy last year. The other cool thing was that Austin Spitler got resigned today so all four people who signed the hat are actually still on the Phins.

Anyway, I took a bunch of pictures, even after we were getting beat on pretty badly. I hope you guys dig them. If you want to save one just double click the gallery below and it will take you directly to our Flickr page. Phins up!

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Yesterday was amazing! We had so many people packed into our new home, Slattery’s Midtown Pub, that we took over both floors, not just the upstairs like planned. The only problem was the bar wasn’t quite prepared for the insane turnout so they were understaffed and it took forever to get food and drink. Fortunately, they know the deal now and will have plenty of staff on hand moving forward. The bar was amazed at the turnout and we are going to get all the kinks worked out and make this the best experience possible. All the problems aside, the day was so great and I know everyone had a fantastic time. So pumped moving forward.

Michelle and I are both out of town for work next week but Alex will still have the shirts to sell, and I am sure someone will take over for me as far as screaming like an insane person all day. But we will be back for the Falcons  game and we will plan something special for the Monday night Saints game!

Anyway, I took a bunch of photos at our meet up yesterday so check them out. If you want to save a photo or something just click the slideshow below and it will open in a new window!

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It took me a few days but I finally got up all the pictures from the draft. Honestly I didn’t do a great job taking photos because I was totally stressed about everything, but I got some shots you guys are going to enjoy for sure. The trip was a HUGE success and we had 40 Dolfans sitting together at the draft making more noise than any other fan base. You could hear us on TV during the picks and if you watch the draft video you can see Dion Jordan point to us up top when he walked out on stage. We were singing the fight song, chanting Let’s Go Dolphins, Dion! Dion! Dion and of course J-E-T-S Suck Suck Suck! We pretty much ruined Jets fans lives all day. It was pretty great.

We should have a pretty cool draft video coming soon from Alex Bente who helped us make our fantastic #MetLifeTakeover video. By the way we got video taped by a few different media outlets during the draft so if anyone sees any footage of us let us know and we can try to edit it into the video.

So yeah! Check out the photos. You can double click on any of them you like and it will take you to our Flickr page where you can download the photo. Thanks a bunch and Go Dolphins!

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I wanted to post these earlier but two crushing losses were hard to deal with. I will say that leading up to the Titans game I had an amazing weekend. Michelle and I were invited down to the 9th annual Miami Dolphins Web Weekend. It’s an event the Dolphins hold every year where they bring staff of Miami Dolphins fan websites down for a game, a locker room tour and some really cool other things. This is actually my 9th year and Michelle and I met at the weekend when we both ran other Phins related sites.

I took a ton of photos so let me break down the weekend so you know what you are looking at when you check out the gallery. The first night of the weekend we had dinner at the training facility. Normally the Friday dinner is a little more informal with just free food and people hanging out talking. Last year we had a surprise visit from Nat Moore. This year they upped the ante with Joe Philbin surprising us. He talked to us for a while and signed some hats for our fundraiser. After that Sam Madison and showed up and talked with everyone for the rest of dinner. No one could get him to stop talking. It was great. He was showing people how he would defend Randy Moss and stuff.

The next day we got up really early and went to the stadium and helped the Miami Dolphins Special Teams pack up care packages for the military for Veterans Day. After that we had some time off and then met up back at the Dolphins training facility. There was a tour of the facilities and we saw that Richie Incognito had the Dolfans NYC shirt I sent him sitting on his locker. I thought that was pretty cool. The Dolphins equipment manager talked to us for a while which was surprisingly interesting. After that we had dinner and then we went into the team meeting room where we had a series of guest speakers. Some of them were Dolphins staffers you probably don’t care too much about, but the big ones were Mike Dee, Jeff Ireland and Jim Kiick.

Jeff Ireland was hilarious. He came out right away and made fun of all his mistakes and the trip to get Harbaugh and what he called “Dezgate” He answered our questions surprisingly honestly and was very straight forward. It made me like the guy a lot. Of course that was before we lost two horrible games in a row where our team failed to show up completely. Mike Dee answered a bunch of questions and talked about how the new logo was going to be a combination of retro and modern. He told us he had showed it to Bob Greise, Nat Moore and Dan Marino and they all loved it. It got me exited. When he said he only had time for one more question I raised my hand. I thanked him for coming to our tailgate and then I told him that Michelle and I had a present for him.  We walked up to the front of the room and Michelle handed him an envelope with $1000 that we raised for the Miami Dolphins Foundation.  It was a really cool moment and he thanked us and the Dolphins staff photographer took photos. Next time we have to get him a novelty sized check. Lastly Jim Kiick came up and was hilarious as well. Talked about how he hated Shula and it only took them 40 years to become friends. He introduced a documentary about the ’72 season and then did a Q&A after the movie. He also signed a ton of autographs and posed for photos. Very cool guy.

At some point during the night (after the speakers but before the movie) the Miami Dolphins announce the “Webby Awards”. The Webbys are awards given to different  fan sites. Dolfans NYC had never won one because we don’t have a forum and we aren’t very similar to the other sites so there hadn’t been a category for us to win. This year they added the Eddie Jones Community Award after the late Dolphins president Eddie Jones. We thought this was an award we could win since we do so much fundraising and we have a real community.  So we were shocked when we actually heard our name called for another award. We won an award for best columns and features so that was pretty cool. We actually tied with Phin Phanatic and then tied with them AGAIN for the community award. Brian Miller who runs that site is a really great guy so it was an honor to share the award with him.  He won best over all site as well.

As fun as Saturday was it was now game time. We woke up early Sunday morning and headed to the stadium just a few minutes after the gates opened. We did a few laps around the stadium and ended up at the Phin Addicts tailgate where they were hosting a bunch of military members for Veterans Day. It was very cool. Those guys are serious fans. I would be in the Deep End with them every week if I lived in Miami. Before the game we hit the Nat Moore BBQ tailgate for some serious food and then got to go on the field and watch the team warm up. Finally we went to our seats in the “Locker Room Club”. The seats are actually on the field in the endzone and you are right there. You can then walk in the stadium right where the lockers are and you can see the players go in and out of the locker room. I have sat in these seats one before and it’s a much better experience when the team isn’t getting destroyed by the Titans. Another highlight was that Stephen Ross came over to the Locker Room Club before the game and shook my hand and told me how much fun the tailgate was. I had a copy of the Miami Herald that had a photo I took of him on the cover of the sports section so I pulled it out to show him. He signed it for me and a picture of us ended up on the Miami Dolphins Instagram account and on Mike Dee’s Twitter. Oh, and I saw Don Shula driving around the field before the game on a golf cart! Very cool.

After that moment it was all down hill and we don’t need to talk about it except to say I got an amazing picture of the pick six Tannehill threw. Sign.  Anyway, the pictures from the whole weekend are great and  you should check them out by clicking here or using the Flickr slideshow below. Go Dolphins!

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The DolfansNYC tailgate and takeover was the most successful thing we have ever done as a club. We bought 200 tickets, rolled up to the stadium in two packed busses and were pretty much the only fans left at the end of the game. It was amazing. There had to have been more than 300 fans at the tailgate and we sold out of EVERY Dolfans NYC t-shirt and raised a bunch of money for charity. We plan on donating $1500 to the Miami Dolphins Foundation when Michelle and I head down to Miami for the Titans game in two weeks. Really great experience.

If you somehow missed the news we had a few special guests at the tailgate… Dolphins owner Stephen Ross showed up with minority owner Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas, CEO Mike Dee, Phins great Nat Moore, MiamiDolphins.com Andy Kent and a ton of cheerleaders. It was so cool of them to do that and a pretty good PR move. Some Jets fan hit Mr. Ross with a cheeseburger knocking his glasses off. Luckily they fell right at my feet and as soon as Ross got his glasses back on he just ignored the whole thing and kept posing for pictures and signing autographs. One of our members asked him why he came down and he said “I could have stayed in my box all game but I had to check out the tailgate. This is the biggest Dolphins fan club in the United States!” Very cool.

After the tailgate we filled the stands. We may have been in the endzone in the nosebleeds but I assure you our presence was felt. Mike Dee tweeted after the game “Great to head home w/a win. Complete team effort w/ an assist from DolfansNYC, who kept the Fins chants going all game long!” Reggie Bush didn’t mention us by name but he Tweeted “Loved the Dolphins fans showing up today! We heard you guys loud and clear and so did the rest of the stadium! Thanks for your support.” Not to brag or anything (okay maybe a little) I was leading the chants from the endzone. By the end of the game all the Jets fans were gone and the Dolphins fans left seemed to flood into our sections and we chanted “LET’S GO DOLPHINS” so loudly you could hear it on TV. It was one of the best experiences of my life. What a great day.

I want to thank everybody who came out, and especially want to thank my partner Michelle who did all the dirty work on this one. I am pretty good at doing the promoting and doing the screaming but Michelle is the best party planner you could imagine and put all 199 tickets we bought on her credit card. We have worked on this for months, but she busted her ass all week on the details while I was off hanging out with my girlfriend in California. So thanks Michelle, thanks to Sailor Jerry rum for sponsoring the tailgate, thanks to Third & Long for hosting a breakfast before we got on the buses, thanks to everyone who joined us at the game and thanks to the Miami Dolphins organization for not just recognizing us but supporting us.

All the pictures I took at the tailgate are below. If you want to save one just double click it or you can just go directly to our Flickr page to see and save all the pictures there.

Go Dolphins!

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Week one was a huge success for Dolfans NYC but not so much a success for the Miami Dolphins. We had a packed house at Third and Long(sadly we had to send a few fans next door until we could sneak more people in) and we raised some money for the Miami Dolphins Foundation with another raffle. A lot of the regulars won the prizes so I was happy about that. If you didn’t win you will have more chances. We plan on doing a bunch of raffles this year. We won’t be doing one this Sunday but we will have a new batch of t-shirts for sale.

The Dolphins on the other hand did not play so well. They teased us with great defense and better than expected offense for about 25 minutes. They couldn’t get in the endzone but they looked good against a VERY good team. And then they fell apart. They had four turnovers in four possessions and got scored on three times in the last three minutes of the half making a 3-3 game a 24-3 game by the time they went into the locker room. Aside from a special teams touchdown they couldn’t get in the endzone in the second half and lost 30-10.

It took me two days to get over the game but in the end I came out feeling pretty okay about it. Yes, it was painful to watch but if you think about it there were a lot of positive signs. The Dolphins run defense was dominant and the secondary did okay. Andre Johnson is one of the best players in the NFL and the Texans have a very good offense. They scored 24 points off of turn overs and ended up scoring only 30 points. That’s impressive.

The offense couldn’t score in the red zone and gave up four turnovers which you don’t want to see. But it’s not very often that a team gives up four turnovers in four drives. Tannehill looked pretty good aside from throwing passes into the defensive line and I think that stuff is correctable. Some of the missed passes that looked like over throws or under throws were mostly to Armstrong and Hartline, two players that have only been practicing with Tannehill for a week. Their timing will get better and Hartline looked very healthy. The right side of the o-line struggled and we clearly need better receivers, but the run game looks awesome, the o-line should get better as the year goes on and when Hartline and Armstrong play with Tannehill for a bit longer the passing game could improve significantly.

The Dolphins are not going to be a good team this year and we know it. But there were a lot of good signs against the Texans that were over shadowed by a few minutes in the second quarter. If Tannehill turns out to be a pretty good QB in this league this year won’t even matter. But that being said I think the Dolphins are going to be a lot better at the end of the year than they are now. And for the record I think they beat the Raiders on Sunday. Go Dolphins.

Check out the slideshow of pictures from Third & Long below. If you want to save a photo double click on it and it will take you to Flickr.

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Michelle and I were lucky enough to attend the Raiders/Dolphins game at Sun Life Stadium last week. I was in Miami on business and Michelle was visiting her family. We got cheap tickets and got there early to tailgate. I got to meet up with the Deep End guys and met a bunch of local crazy Dolfans. Kyshawn from Dolfans NYC was there too and ended up sitting in the Deep End. Very cool. Next time I am in Miami I am gonna figure my way in there…

Anyway, I shot a roll of actual film at the game and I just got it developed. Check out real life 35mm film photographs of the amazing game below. RIP Jim Mandich.

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Although it seems ages ago after that tragedy that befell us on Thanksgiving Day, last Sunday was fantastic. Our boys in Aqua trounced the Buffalo Jills in the most brutal fashion. Our defense came up huge pounding away on the Bills who limped off the field down by multiple scores after just the first half. It was a beautiful thing.

Third and Long was not exactly packed as you might expect when your team loses seven straight games to open a season but the die hards are there every week and by the end of the first quarter the bar was bumping. This was the most fun I have had watching a Dolphins game since I had second row seats to watch the Phins beat the Jets at the Meadowlands to lock up the AFC Championship in 2008. It was a great day.

I took a few pictures that are not exactly the most flattering shots of our bunch. Earlier in the year we tend to have a lot more cute girls out. But hey a win is a win and shots all around. Go Dolphins!

If you want to save a picture double click the slide show below and it will open up in a new window!

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