enlarge John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Vinnie Degifico, center, of South Portland spends time with son Anthony, 10, and daughter Maria, 5, watching NFL games in their TV room. Guess which team is their favorite.

Anthony Degifico, 10, came home from a Portland Pirates game the other day with a pleased look. He had worn his New York Giants No. 80 Jeremy Shockey jersey to the game, which attracted attention.

"Dad, there were a lot of Giants fans there," he said to his father, Vinnie Degifico of South Portland.

Degifico, 43, could have told his son that.

"I've always been a Giants fan," Degifico said.

You have probably heard this before, especially if you've encountered a Giants fan lately, but the Giants were New England's team long before the upstart Patriots began playing. The Giants' first season was in 1925, the Patriots' in 1960.

And in their biggest clash, they meet tonight in the Super Bowl.

"This Super Bowl is really unique," said Giants fan Carl Parker, a Lincoln native. "It kind of ties the old and new for New England.

"The new does not understand how the old can still root for the Giants ... but, at the time, in the '50s and '60s, the Giants were THE team."

Parker, 56, a former nose guard on the University of Maine football team, has been a coach and administrator and now is on the Lee Academy staff.

Parker remembers his family driving into the local Shell gas station, which gave out pictures of favorite Giants players.

"Andy Robustelli, Y.A. Tittle, Frank Gifford, Sam Huff ... " Parker said.

The Giants' popularity resulted in a preseason game played at Garland Street Field, now Cameron Stadium, in Bangor in 1959 as part of the city's 125th anniversary festivities. The Giants played the Green Bay Packers.

"It was a great thrill," said Walt Abbott, the former Maine player and head football coach. "They were the team."

But ask Abbott about tonight's Super Bowl, and his allegiances have changed.

"I grew up a strong Giants fan," Abbott said. "If they were playing any other team, I'd be rooting for them. ... But now they're playing closer to home."

Giants fans like Degifico and his childhood friend Mike Cloutier can't understand that logic.

"I never hated the Patriots, but I'd never change sides," Cloutier said.

Giants supporters who grew up in Maine usually have one thing in common: They became Giants fans because their parents rooted for the Giants.

"The guys from the neighborhood, they were all Giants fans," Degifico said.

As adults, they used to meet at Degifico's house, which features a "Giants Room" in the basement. Degifico unsuccessfully tried to get 56 for a house number, in honor of Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor.

For tonight's game, Degifico and his pals will go to Cloutier's new house in Cape Elizabeth. Previous playoff outings were open invitations, but not today.

"No Pats fans," Cloutier said.

Cloutier, a builder, did extend an invite to someone he just met at a lumberyard -- a transplanted New Yorker who had nowhere to watch the game.

Transplants have kept the Giants contingent strong in New England.

On the glass wall of her office at Cheverus High, Jody Lamscha, the school's advancement and communications coordinator, posted this message:

"Dear New England:

"Sorry, but after February 3, you'll be looking at an 18-1 season.

"XOXO NY."

Lamscha, who moved from Schenectady, N.Y., said the note has prompted plenty of responses -- and fun. Her allegiance to the Giants came from her family.

"I was weaned on it," Lamscha said. "I used to be a little rabid about it, but I've calmed down since the Parcells years."

Cheverus admissions director and Fitzpatrick Trophy chairman Jack Dawson is also a Giants fan. But Dawson, a Boston College alumnus, has supported other teams, too.

"I listened to the Boston Yanks of the All-America Conference (in the late 1940s) on the radio," Dawson said. "Then there was always the Giants.

"When the Patriots started, Mike...