This season has obviously been disappointing and Sunday was pretty much a disaster on the field but off the field we had a hell of a time. It’s hard to explain to someone who has never been to a #MetLifeTakeover but there is truly no better experience as a Miami Dolphins fan. Obviously I am a bit biased but when you get to tailgate with hundreds of fans and then all walk in and sit with 1000 Dolfans and make so much noise that you can hear us on TV even in a disaster of a game it’s the greatest feeling in the world.

In the fourth quarter we were getting killed and for some reason most of the Jets fans had already left the game. A lot of Dolphins fans had left too, but our section was still filled with a ton of die hards. The Dolphins scored and we sang the fight song as loud as we could. We then recovered and onside kick and were cheering like crazy. Then, the Dolphins being the Dolphins, we fumbled the ball and the few remaining Jets fans started laughing at us. I turned to our remaining crowd and started chanting “Let’s Go Dolphins” as loud as I could. The rest of crew joined me and all you could hear was “Let’s Go Dolphins” despite just turning over the ball on the fourth quarter of a blow out. It was one of my proudest moments as a Dolphins fan.

It’s easy to be a fan when you are winning. It takes something special to root for your team when you are terrible. Reshad Jones Tweeted “When you winning, everyone is your friend, it’s easy to be on the wagon, so a SPECIAL shout-out to the ride or die fans!!” and we showed everyone we are out here riding for our team!

Now, about the tailgate!

We had a blast! Our four busses made it to the tailgate by 9am so we had hours to party. DJ Tropic DJ’d the whole thing which really upped the game from the last few years. Solo D and his Miami Sports Music/ DWA crew perform. We had a catered tailgate and Pabst Blue Ribbon donated 600 beers! We had water from AqauHydrate and Sailor Jerry Rum & cider. We are so lucky to have such rad sponsors.

We raised nearly $3000 through donations and merch sales which when you add to the money we made at the #MetLifeTakeover Pre-Party was close to $5000 that we can donate charity for the weekend not including the money we made from ticket sales. Plus we had a ton of people bring toys to continue the toy drive we did from the night before. Really amazing. Thanks so much everyone!

We had some cool guests at the tailgate as well. Dolphins legend Nat Moore and CEO Tom Garfinkel showed up at the tailgate which is always awesome. They have been big supporters of what we do up here. We also had Andrew Abramson from the Palm Beach Post and Brent Grimes infamous wife Miko show up as well. Miko has come to all our tailgates and this is Andrew’s second one so I appreciate the support from them. We even had some Jets fans come by to talk some smack. But they are the guys responsible for flying banners over the Patriots practices to troll them so I guess they aren’t so terrible.

Anyway, it was a terrible game but another amazing experience. Let’s just hope next year’s Takeover isn’t on Thanksgiving so we can bring out even more Dolfans and get another win. Since the first big #MetLifeTakeover this is our only loss so I think we are doing pretty well overall. Phins up!

Now check out all the photos from the tailgate!

Okay we get it. The Dolphins aren’t good at football. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy the football season. We had a fantastic weekend here in NYC even if the last three hours of it were really terrible. Our weekend started off with a party at our bar Slattery’s Midtown Pub on Saturday. We invited our normal crew plus anyone who was in town for the game to a three hour meet and greet kinda thing and it was a ton of fun. We had people there from Indonesia, the UK, Canada and of course TON of people from Florida. It was a great turnout and we raised a lot of money.

We had DJ Tropic DJ and Solo D perform and of course we had a big raffle where we raised about $1000 for charity. On top of that we did a live auction to benefit the Dan Marino Foundation where we had a Marino signed ball go for $400 and a Cam Wake signed mini-helmet go for an insane $310. We decided to round up and we will be donating $1000 to the Dan Marino Foundation to help people with autism and other disabilities.

Lastly I just wanted to thank the Miami Dolphins, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Dolfans NYC member Rambo for donating items for the raffle and of course our volunteers for helping out! You guys rule.

Now check out some photos from the event! If you want to save an image you just have to double click it in the gallery and it will take you to the actual page on Flickr.

Just want to get this up quickly before the game and then I will come back and update with some more info. Just wanted everyone to know we are having a party next Saturday at Slattery’s Midtown Pub (8 East 36th St in Manhattan) from 4-7pm the night before the #MetLifeTakeover! We will have some really serious raffle prizes, tons of Dolfans NYC merch for sale and a live performance from Solo D. DJ Tropic will be DJing all evening as well and we should have some cool surprises in store.

It’s a great chance to meet fellow Dolfans before the game. Last year’s pre-party was a blast and Jay Fiedler showed up and signed some autographs. Don’t miss it!

Lastly, we are doing a toy drive so bring an unwrapped toy and we will give you two free drink tickets for the #MetLifeTakeover tailgate thanks to Pabst Blue Ribbon!

See you Saturday!

This is it! We are coming down to the wire. We have over 700 tickets sold already and another 100 that have told us they are going to pay soon so get your money in now!

On the 23rd we are going to stop ticket sales for the #MetLifeTakeover. After that date Michelle is going to be dealing with family stuff for Thanksgiving and then traveling up to NYC and won’t have time to deal with distributing tickets, so if you want to join us you only have a few more days to get your money in.

It’s also time to get your money in for the tailgate. Same deadline as the tickets. $25 includes a hot dog, a burger, pasta salad, chips, two beers care of Pabst Blue Ribbon and bottled water care of AquaHydrate. Plus Sailor Jerry is providing rum for hot cider. We did it last year and that went over pretty well given how cold and rainy it was. Hopefully the weather will be better this year. Email dolfansnyc@gmail.com to get your tailgate ticket.

There is also still an option to take a bus to the game from our bar Slattery’s Midtown Pub but we need to get final numbers in by noon on the 23rd so that is the absolute deadline to get your money in for that.

Here is the sign up link for the tickets and bus: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4faea72dabf94-dolphins1 

But if you already have your ticket and you just need a tailgate ticket email dolfansnyc@gmail.com immediately!

Lastly, remember we are going to have a party the night before the game at Slattery’s so put that on your calendar, especially if you are coming from out of town. No details yet, but we should have them soon!

Hey guys! It’s not too late to sign up for the #MetLifeTakeover! I just wanted to post the info again so that people would see it right when they went to our site. We have over 600 people who have paid for tickets already! Should be an amazing time when the Dolphins come up to play the Jets!

We are also going to be doing a big tailgate and tickets for that will go on sale very soon. It will be $25 for food, water and a booze thanks to PBR, Sailor Jerry and Aqua Hydrate water. But more on that soon.

We are also going to be having a party the night before at our bar Slattery’s Midtown Pub, but more on that later as well. We are behind on everything because of Michelle’s move but don’t worry, we are on top of everything. See you guys soon.

Sign up here and get your money in as soon as Michelle emails you. Thanks & Phins up!

Last weekend we headed down for Miami for a convergence of two events. First we had the annual Web Weekend which is a conference of people who run Miami Dolphins web sites that has been hosted by the Dolphins for the last 12 years. Michelle and I became friends there so the birth of Dolfans NYC came out of that event. The second event is the Dolphins Fan Club Weekend which is a gathering of fan clubs from around the country
for a home game. Unfortunately since we are part of both weekends we can’t go to all the events but we had a great time anyway. Oh and the game was pretty good too…

Let’s see if I can give you guys a quick rundown of the event.

FRIDAY:

On Friday we went to the team training facility and got to listen to a bunch of people talk and we did a little Q&A with everyone. The highlight was of course Coach Campbell but we also got to talk to Matt Darr, Rishard Matthews and Mike Tannenbaum which was pretty awesome. Darr might have been the most interesting speaker actually because he talked a lot about what it’s like being an undrafted free agent with almost no hope of making the team, but it was all pretty great. Fortunately our resident journalist, Alex Kramers, wrote up the Campbell talk and he got a few moments to himself with Rishard Matthews!

SATURDAY:

Web Weekend on Saturday always starts with a community service event with the Dolphins “Special Teams”. This particular Saturday we helped Feeding South Florida pack up expired but still good food to give to families in need. And by “we” I mean everyone else because I slept 90 minutes the night before and was dead to the world. Luckily we made a $250 donation Feeding SF so I feel a bit less guilty.

Saturday afternoon was our chance to tour the practice faculties, check out the Nick Saban Memorial Bubble, and eat in the team cafeteria. After that we had the Miami Dolphins Webbie Awards that are given out by the team and voted on by other Miami Dolphins sites. For the third or fourth year in a row we won the Eddie Jones award for community service which is what we strive for. So I want to thank everyone who has helped us raise money for charity ever year. Speaking of which we donated $5000 to the Miami Dolphins Foundation which was a great thing to be able to do. Thanks again! (Oh we also won the Webbie for best use of social networking which I got to keep cause I run all that stuff! Woo!)

Between Webbies we got to talk to some more people including CEO Tom Garfinkel (who is always incredibly interesting to talk to) and Dolphins legend Tony Nathan who has a movie in theaters now about his life! I cannot wait to see Woodlawn now that I know it’s about him. Tony was wearing an Alabama hat so we had to give him a Dolphins NYC hat and he actually wore it to the Dolphins game the next day when has an honorary captain! Amazing! The webbies ended with a media roundtable where we got to ask  of Dolphins journalists a bunch of questions. The roundtable featured Adam Beasley, Andrew Abramson, Andy Cohen, Alain Poupart and Dolphins great Kim Bokamper. Afterwards we gave Kim a Dolfans NYC shirt which makes up for the time that he let me take home a menu from his restaurant… speaking of…

After the webbies we went over to Bokamper’s to meet up with the Fan Club Weekend crew. We had about 25 people in Miami for the game so it was good to see Crazy Uncle Billy and the crew. We just missed Solo D’s performance but I think he is gonna play both the #MetLifeTakeover AND the Takeover preparty so I wasn’t too upset about it.

SUNDAY:

What can I even say about Sunday? It was the best first half I have ever seen in my life. There was even an insane storm during part of it but I just stayed in my seat and got wet. What a blast that was. The second half wasn’t quite as exciting but it was still a great time and honestly I thought I was going to pass out if I had to sing our fight song again!

So yeah, amazing weekend and it was awesome to see everyone and be in Miami. Big extra thanks to Scott Stone and Sergio Xiques for throwing the Web Weekend and Fan Club Weekend for us.

Oh and see you guys tonight at Slattery’s for Thursday night football!!!

So the Dolphins play at 9:30am on Sunday and we are gonna have a party. Slattery’s Midtown Pub will be open at 8am and will have some breakfast food options, a lot of coffee and of course some appropriate drinks. Fortunately for us before Slattery’s was our bar it was a soccer bar and they are used to opening at weird times for games. Despite the unfortunate few weeks the team has had this is Jets week and I wanna see everyone out at the bar.

On top of just a big game and the weird timing, this is going to be Michelle’s last game as a New Yorker. As per her last post, she is moving to Miami and taking her husband and Dolfans NYC blogger Alex with her. Everything we do would be impossible without Michelle and we are all fortunate that she is still going to be working on the #MetLifeTakeover and helping out as much as possible from Miami, plus I know she’s gonna be coming up a few times a year to party with us.

So come out early and let’s get some anger out on these Jets and give Michelle a hug because you won’t see her in NYC again until the #MetLifeTakover. Let’s pack the bar and have some fun at a totally unreasonable hour.

Phins up!

As many of you already know, I am moving to South Florida in a few weeks. It was a bittersweet decision because while we are thrilled to be moving closer to my family (and the Dolphins!) we are also sad to leave the city, our relatives here and of course, DolfansNYC.

We are working on a new About Us section for our website, so I won’t go into the whole history of the club, even though I really want to. It’s honestly one of the things I am most proud of in my life. What this club has turned into is so incredibly awesome and I still look around on game days in disbelief at what it’s become.

The fact that we have donated over $20,000 to charity in 7 years is nothing short of amazing.

The fact that the Miami Dolphins organization has taken notice and are actively in support of what we do is incredible.

The fact that Jets fans can’t walk within a 5 mile radius of Slattery’s without hearing us singing the Dolphins fight song warms my heart. 🙂

The fact that we have turned MetLifeTakeover into a huge annual event that gives our team home field advantage in another city makes me so happy.

All of this is thanks to you guys.

For showing up.
For bringing your friends.
For buying raffle tickets.
For tailgating with us.
For sitting with us in the cold in the 300 level section.
For posting, tweeting, sharing, tagging and blogging about DolfansNYC.
And much, much more.

You guys have made this club what it is today and I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of such a remarkable group of fans. The rest of the league should be jealous.

I will miss everyone so much and will forever look back on all of my wonderful memories of spending game days with my DolfansNYC family.

Love,
Michelle

PS…This isn’t officially goodbye. I will continue working on MetLifeTakeover and will contribute in any way I can to the club. I’m also planning lots of visits! 🙂

Last weekend I headed down to DC with a van full of Dolfans NYC members to support our brothers to the south. NOVA Dolfans and The Valley Finatics were doing their best #MetLifeTakeover impression in Washington called the DC Shutdown. After the NOVA Dolfans came to our takeover a few years ago they were really inspired and spent nearly two years planning this thing. Dolfans NYC did all we could to help them with this thing but they really killed it last weekend and I am glad we had a bunch of our crew there to support them.

Saturday night there was a party at the Mellow Mushroom in Herndon, VA. It’s the NOVA Dolfans home base and although a hippie pizza place is an odd choice for a sports bar, it was a blast. Solo D did his thing and our buddies Paul Picken and Stephen Daniels hosted the event all night. Even OJ McDuffie showed up! It was great.

The next day there was a huge tailgate but Dolfans were EVERYWHERE. DC only gets a Dolphins game every 8 years and it’s an easy drive from NYC all the way down to North Carolina. Ever Phins fan on the east coast seemed to be there and we actually ended up tailgating with a totally different crew because they let us use their grill (the NOVA guys had a catering company). Of course we still made our appearances and partied with those guys for a while.

The game itself left a lot to be desired but in the end we got a win and Dolfans totally took over the game. The DC Shutdown crew was in one end and then all the Dolfans that bought tickets on their own seemed to be on the visitors sideline lower level. The combination of these to huge packs of Phins fans with the hundreds of other Dolfans there created a lot of noise and you could hear us clearly on TV. The whole thing was a blast.

I thought I was going to take a ton of photos during the party and the tailgate but I ended up doing none of that. I did get a big group portrait at the Mellow Mushroom and a nice shot of my friend Kathleen doing a selfie with OJ McDuffie so I figured I would post those two shots but that’s really all I got.

Anyway, see you guys on Sunday at 4pm at Slattery’s Midtown Pub! I can’t wait to get back to our bar! Phins up!

Miami Dolphins own Branden Albert has partnered with St. Louis Ram’s DE Chris Long to raise money for Chris’ charity Waterboys.org. The charity raises money to build wells for clean drinking water in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Aside from being an amazing cause, Chris Long came up with a great idea: If building a well costs $45,000 he could challenge one player from every NFL team to raise $45,000 and by seasons end they should hopefully have enough to build 32 wells.

Branden Albert is in 7th place right now but I know Dolfans can do better than that! Let’s show everyone that Dolphins fans are the best fans in the NFL. Dolfans NYC started things off with a $571 dollar donation but there is a long way to go!

Donating should be it’s own reward (and it’s tax deductible!) but I figured we could sweeten the pot. Anyone who makes a $25 donation we will give a shout out and follow on Twitter or send some Dolfans NYC stickers in the mail or something. First person to donate $100 can have our 300 level season tickets to the home opener vs the Buffalo bills. Anyone else who donates $100 will get a $20 credit for Dolfans NYC merch to be used at Slattery’s Midtown Pub or the #MetLifeTakeover.

Update: If you donate forward the confirmation to dolfansnyc@gmail.com. Thanks!

Let’s help our Pro Bowl  LT build a well! 

In unrelated news the fourth preseason game is no longer on national TV so we will NOT be doing an event at Slattery’s this Thursday but we will be ready to go for week one! See you at the bar!