Normally spending 10 hours outside in the freezing rain is not my idea of a good time, but on Monday it was a blast. I got to MetLife Stadium about five minutes before the gates open and we rushed to Lot L. We found the nearest empty section and parked under the L8 pole. 15 minutes later we had Phins fans surrounding us. About a half hour later the Jets L8 tailgate showed up… I guess L8 stands for late because they had to take their party down the block. The Takeover had already begun.

Bryan and I set up our merch table and put out a bunch of  free AquaHydrate water and Sailor Jerry rum. Someone showed up with a 30 cup coffee pot and we filled it with hot apple cider. The Sailor and cider was a huge hit and we didn’t even need ice for the AquaHydrate! We had palm tree coolers and someone hung up a Jets piñata and we had people cooking food on either side. We were ready to rock!

Unfortunately the rain started to fall and everything got a little bit miserable. The grilling stopped and the palm trees got blow sideways and a lot of people spent some  time locked in their cars. But the northeastern Phins fans carried on and just started drinking to keep warm. Chants of J-E-T-S Suck Suck Suck and the Dolphins theme song rang out into the semi empty parking lot. There seemed to be a lot more Dolphins fans than Jets fans… certainly in our lot.

By the time Michelle and the four charter buses arrived from Slattery’s we had amassed a huge crowd of Phins fans. The Dolphins showed up with a camera crew and got some great shots as did our in house camera guy. It was a pretty great party despite the weather.

We handed out 200 inflatable palm tress and the 600 Dolfans NYC rally towels that AquaHyrdrate sponsored  and sold some of our warm DolfansNYC hats to those who forgot what NYC in December feels like and I took a bunch of pictures.

Unfortunately the rain deterred some of the Dolphins brass that was planning on attending but we had Brent Grimes’ hilarious wife Miko Grimes stop by again as did Andrew Abramson from the Palm Beach Post.

The game itself was pretty awful and the stands were freezing but I was really impressed with our crew who screamed on every third down and chanted Let’s Go Dolphins throughout the whole game. You could hear us chanting DE-FENSE on TV and the announcers mentioned the Miami crowd several times. Jarvis Landry was specifically asked about us after the game and coach Philbin mentioned us in his opening statement in his post game press conference.

Overall it was a fantastic #MetLifeTakeover and I have pictures to prove it! If you want to download a picture just double click it and it will open Flickr in a new window.

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What a great few days we had! On Sunday we threw a #MetLifeTakeover pre-party at Slattery’s Midtown Pub because we knew a lot of people weren’t going to be able to tailgate because of their day jobs. Monday Night Football is an awesome time but it’s not very convenient! It worked out really well considering the freezing rain Monday night and we had a lot of fun!

Sunday was a great opportunity for everyone from out of town to meet each other and check out Slattery’s. It was also a great way for us to get a lot of the logistics out of the way. We handed out bus passes and gave out info about the tailgate and practiced some cheering. We also gave out a bunch of the Dolfans NYC #MetLifeTakeover rally towels that we had thanks to the support from AquaHyrdrate.

We had some special guests as well! The Miami Dolphins sent two of their staffers Sergio and Hayle (Hayle’s dad is a Dolfans NYC regular) and they brought former Dolphins QB Jay Fiedler. He was just supposed to be there for an hour signing autographs and taking pictures but he ended up sticking around a lot longer and even introduced our other special guest Solo D. Solo D did a short set including the new Dolfans NYC anthem!

As you probably know a big part of Dolfans NYC is our charitable donations so we had to have a HUGE fundraiser for the #MetLifeTakeover. The Dolphins sent us a ton of stuff to give away (including 150 shirts!) so we did free giveaways, a raffle and a live auction! The raffle was a big success and we raised over $1200 the biggest prize of the night was a Ryan Tannehill signed helmet and that clearly went to the right people. Check out the amazing video they recorded when they gave the helmet to their kids. It brings a tear to your eye!

The live auction went amazing as well! We had some game used cleats sell for $70, a playbook signed by Jarvis Landry go for $50 and a signed Mike Wallace helmet went for an incredible $550! With those items plus a few extra donations we ended up raising $750 for Darryl Talley the former Bills linebacker who is going through some very hard times as a result of brain injury from a career spent chasing Marino all over the field. Former ESPN AFC East blogger Tim Graham told Talley’s heartbreaking story and we are so glad we were able to help a former enemy. As much as we hate the Bills, we all love football and it’s moments like this when we an come together for something bigger.

When you add the auction and the raffle and all the Dolfans NYC merch we sold we raised over $3000 that will go into the Dolfans NYC war chest so that we can throw bigger and better events and most importantly make charitable donations like the $5000 we recently donated to the Miami Dolphins Foundation. I have a feeling that Ride DCC will be getting a donation in the near future!

Now before I get up all the photos from the actual #MetLifeTakeover I just wanted to thank everyone for coming out to the pre-party. I especially want to thank the Miami Dolphins, Jay Fiedler, Solo D, Slattery’s and AquaHydrate for making it one hell of a party. I also wanted anyone in the tri-state area to check out Jay Fiedler’s Brookwood Camps. The Fidler family runs a summer sports camp that combines normal sleepover camp fun with sports camps and is worth checking out. Always great to support a former Dolphin… especially one from New York!

Now check out the photos below! If you want to download one, just double click it and it will open in a new window!

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It finally happened. Today we sold our 1,000th ticket to the Dolphins game in NJ on Monday Night Football. It’s a huge milestone for us because we thought we would have a hard time selling tickets since it was on a work night and Thanksgiving weekend but we have sold over 250 more than our record breaking 752 tickets last year!

We now own the two highest group ticket purchases in MetLife Stadium history. We have taken the #MetLifeTakeover to another level and thank you guys so much for joining us!

If you still need tickets we are completely sold out, but it’s time to announce the sections so any last minute ticket holders can pick them up on StubHub.

We have nearly the entire sections of 345 and 346 so good luck getting tickets in those sections… but we also have 8 full rows in 344 and several rows in 347 as well. I recommend buying tickets in rows 17-20 in 347 and the top rows (24-26) in 344. Also there are a few seats in the “prime” section of 346 so you can get some pretty great seats cheap with a ton of Dolphins fans sitting right behind you. Let’s keep going!

Now the fun stuff! Tailgate info and the big pre party!

Because it’s on Monday night our busses aren’t leaving our bar, Slattery’s Midtown Pub, until 5:45pm so that means the 216 people who signed up for the buses won’t be getting to MetLife until around 7pm. Because of this we are NOT doing an official tailgate. BUT we are going to be organizing a BYO tailgate in Lot L (you need a YELLOW parking pass). A few of us will be getting there right when the gates open and we will post our location to Twitter and Facebook. If everyone meets us there we can still party while we wait for all the busses to show up. Bring your own beer and food and if you have a grill or tents or whatever BRING EVERYTHING! We can still do a pretty fun tailgate even if it’s not catered or anything like last year. Plus we will have a few surprises in store…

Speaking of surprises, we are throwing a big party at Slattery’s on Sunday the 30th! 

On Sunday at noon we are having a big party since we aren’t doing a proper tailgate. The big news is that members of the Miami Dolphins organization will be there! They haven’t told us who yet, but they are bringing a Dolphins alumni member and a ton of SERIOUS raffle prizes. This will be BY FAR our biggest raffle ever. Plus the first 150 people through the door will receive aqua Miami Dolphins t-shirts! We will be showing the 2013 #MetLifeTakeover game as well as some of the 1pm games plus we will have a performance from the one and only Solo D! There will be the same food/drink specials we have every game day at Slattery’s and there will be even more surprises.

We will also be selling our new merch designed specifically for the #MetLifeTakeover we have new warm weather Dolfans NYC beanies and Dolfans NYC clear bags. If you haven’t been to a game recently the NFL now requires everyone to have clear bags if you want to bring anything into the stadium. So now you can rep our crew in style. If you can’t make the party they are now available in our web store too!

Lastly we will be giving out rally towels for people going to the game with us. You must have purchased tickets from us to get one. We only have 600 so this is the only way you are guaranteed to get one. We will also be giving out wristbands for the bus and even a few inflatable palm trees! It’s going to be a party!

So, let’s get excited for the best #MetLifeTakeover ever!

I just wanted to throw up a post today with a bunch of small updates that you guys might want to know about. It’s hard to update after a loss but for once I felt proud of our team after a loss instead of just upset. It was completely heartbreaking to lose like that but to see our line step up after Albert went down and to see Tannehill play so tough after getting hit over and over again was pretty inspiring. Until that last drive, well after Finnegan went down, the Lions had only one pass worth talking about. Obviously it wasn’t good enough, but this is not your same old Dolphins. But let’s move on and get to the news.

First of all, happy Veteran’s Day. We took the money we made on Sunday at Slattery’s and donated it ($300) to the Wounded Warrior Project. It seemed like the perfect timing for a donation like that. It means a lot that we can give back like this while doing something as fun as this club.

Also in Veteran’s Day news Andy Cohen profiled our friend Jim Miller on the Dolphins website. Jim is a great dude and I get to see him nearly every year as part of the Dolphins Web Weekend. He and I have some political differences but I have never enjoyed discussing our differences more with anyone. He is a true patriot and someone I am honored to call a friend…

In Dolfans NYC news we surprised everyone at the bar on Sunday by announcing that the Marks Brothers, Mark Clayton & Mark Duper would be coming to Slattery’s this Thursday for an autograph signing. We had waited until the last moment to announce because we didn’t have 100% confirmation. Unfortunately we should have waited a little longer because the event they were coming to NYC for got moved. Fortunately for us it looks like they may still be coming after all, just not until the December 14th game against the Patriots. Things are still a bit in the air but as soon as I get more info I will pass it on to you guys.

This Thursday should still be a blast at the bar anyway. We are obviously playing a huge “must win” game. I mean they don’t get much more must win than this in November. Plus it’s prime time so that’s always a lot of fun. And we are doing a FREE raffle to make up for the Marks Brothers mistake. But make sure you get to the bar early. The upstairs of Slattery’s is reserved for us but the downstairs will have a post work happy hour crowd that will probably leave once the bar fills up with 300 Dolphins fans.

Okay, that’s all I got for now but we will be updating soon with more news about the #MetLifeTakeover so be on the look out for that. Have a great Veteran’s Day!

This past weekend was amazing. Not only did we help organize a group trip for fan clubs around the country but it was also the Dolphins annual Web Weekend a conference of Miami Dolphins web masters that I have attended 11 years in a row.  Also the Dolphins played one of their most dominant games in the history of the franchise so that was nice too.

Dolfans NYC was founded because of Web Weekend. Michelle and I both ran Dolphins fan sites and realized we both lived in NYC and started watching games together. A few years later we abandoned our former sites and started Dolfans NYC. This is the 6th time we have attended as Dolfans NYC and the weekends keep getting better.

This year we donated $5000 to the Miami Dolphins Foundation beating our $3000 donation last year after giving $1000 in both 2011 and 2012. That’s $10,000 to the Foundation thanks to you guys. To celebrate we are holding a FREE raffle this week at Slattery’s Midtown Pub for the Lions game. All you have to do is show up and you get a ticket! We should have some cool prizes including a Dolfans NYC shirt signed by AJ Duhe.

Speaking of AJ Duhe, he and Chris Chambers came and spoke to us during Web Weekend. We also had GM Dennis Hickey and CEO Tom Garfinkel in attendance as well. It was pretty great. Plus Jordan Tripp, Michael Thomas and the Finsiders joined us at a party on Friday. Coach Philbin was supposed to speak with us but unfortunately he was out of town because of the death of his father. As always Michelle stepped up and bought a condolence card that we all signed.

The last event of the weekend (aside from the game!) was the Dolphins Webby Awards which are given out to Dolphins Websites. It means a huge amount to me that we have now won the Eddie Jones Community award all three years of its existence. This club has become as much about giving back as it is about football and so that award means a ton to me. We also won the social networking award which I take a bit of pride in considering I do 90% of the social networking for Dolfans NYC. Our third award was the “Most Informative Site” award which is kinda silly considering I haven’t updated this site in a month. That being said our Twitter account and Facebook page serve as great newswires and it still means a great deal because the awards are voted on by our fellow web masters.

Anyway, check out the pictures in this Flickr gallery below. I took all the pictures with our logo watermarked on the images. The other shots are courtesy of the Miami Dolphins. See you guys Sunday!

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It’s victory Monday and we can breath a little for the next two weeks. No better way to go into a bye week than with a commanding victory and coincidentally it’s a great time to sell you guys stuff too! So I just wanted to remind everyone about our big Jets week takeover on Monday Night Football on December 1st! We have nearly 1300 people signed up but only about 600 people have paid. We want to beat our MetLife Stadium group sales record of 761 so if you have signed up get your money in ASAP!

If you haven’t signed up do it now! After signing up you will get an email (be patient sometimes it takes a week or more for us to get back to you) with info on how to pay for the tickets. If you have already signed up all the emails should be sent out by the end of today. If you haven’t received an email from us check your spam folder or email dolfansnyc@gmail.com for more info. But don’t bug Michelle she has a full time job and a baby so sometimes it takes a few days to get back to people.

You can read this FAQ to answer more questions about the #MetLifeTakeover but here’s some quick info. The tickets are $60 which is lower than face value. We get them for slightly less than that and use the money left over to help fund events and to give to charity. We don’t profit at all off any of this. It’s a labour of love.  We don’t like give out what section the tickets are in because we don’t want Jets fans to buy seats around us but they are up top. I know a lot of people don’t love to sit in the upper decks but I assure you sitting with close to 1,000 Dolphins fans is a much more fun experience than sitting front row at the 50 yard line. We also have a bus ticket package where we provide transportation from our bar Slattery’s Midtown Pub but keep in mind that it’s very difficult to park in the city on a Monday night.

Also, I wanted to announce that we are going to throw a party the day before the game at Slattery’s. No details yet but it will probably take place around the 4pm games and will be very worth attending. Since we aren’t doing an official tailgate this year, Sunday will be a great opportunity to meet fellow Phins fans from NYC and beyond, buy Dolfans NYC gear and check out some of the serious surprises we have in store. So if you are coming from out of town make sure you plan to be in the city on Sunday!

Lastly I wanted to thank everyone who came out to the bar on Sunday. We raised over $400 for Hank the bulldog’s medical bills and another $100 for the no kill animal shelter BARC. Really means a lot that we are able to do that for members of our community.

Now enjoy the next two weeks and get ready for a serious test against Aaron Rogers and the Green Bay Packers. Phins up!

SIGN UP FOR THE #METLIFETAKEOVER HERE!

I don’t need to start with the game last week or the way the Dolphins have been playing. Obviously it’s not making any Dolphins fan happy, but Dolfans NYC was founded with the goal of enjoying our Sunday’s and doing something positive at the same time. Win or lose we have more fun every week being with our Dolfan brothers and sisters at Slattery’s and this week we are doing something to help one of them out.

When I first moved to NYC almost exactly 8 years ago I googled “Dolphins Bars NYC” and a bar called Proof came up. When I got there there was only one other Dolphins fan. His name was John and we watched games together every week. At some point my Dolfans NYC partner Michelle came into the bar and we had our first chance meeting which led several years later to the founding of Dolfans NYC. When word go out about our club John heard about it and I saw him again for the first time in a couple years and he instantly became one of the most essential members of Dolfans NYC. He is there every week and has done a lot of great stuff for us and now he needs some help.

John’s dog Hank has been really sick and has been in and out of the vet. John approached us about raffling some of his memorabilia off to help pay for some of his dogs treatments and we of course agreed. So on Sunday John is going to be bringing in some of his memorabilia and we are going to be upping the game with some of our own stuff including an autographed game used Brian Hartline glove.

75% of all the money we raise via raffle will go to Johns dog and the other 25% will go to the no kill animal shelter BARC in Brooklyn where Michelle volunteers.

If you can’t make it to Slattery’s on Sunday and still want to help out , please contact us and we can put you directly in touch with John.

Check out Hank below and check out our Instagram now until Sunday for daily updates featuring Dolfan animals!