The NY Liberty carried their torch high through the Canyon of Heroes.
Thousands of New Yorkers crowded lower Manhattan Thursday to witness the highly-anticipated ticker-tape parade celebrating the WNBA team’s first championship win.
The massive seafoam green-clad party started at 10 a.m. and trekked up Broadway’s “Canyon of Heroes” – complete with floats, music, 3,000 pounds of confetti, Liberty mascot Ellie the Elephant and, of course, the WNBA champs themselves.
Liberty guard Courtney Vandersloot electrified the crowd during the parade when she made an unscheduled stop to jump off the float and get up close with hundreds of screaming Liberty faithful.
Liberty guard Courtney Vandersloot electrified the crowd during the parade when she made an unscheduled stop to jump off the float and get up close with hundreds of screaming Liberty faithful.
One particularly excited bunch of spectators were a group of 11 Liberty season ticket holders, both children and parents from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.
The children joined the crowd — estimated by the city at 80,000 — as they skipped an art museum school field trip to catch the Liberty ticker tape parade.
“The Museum of Art and Design will probably be open for the next 50 years but we might not ever see another ticker tape parade so we don’t want to miss this one,” said Elsa Lowery, 10, standing next to her mom Angela Carola, 43.
“It’s a reward for all the hard school work and for being little Die Hard fans,” said Kayla Alexander, 29, of Islip, New York – who came with her sister Skyye Alexander and nieces Xena Alexander, 6, and Athena Alexander, 8, who attends Liberty basketball clinics.
“We take them to the games all the time and I wish my parents were able to take me to things like this when we were little,” Kayla added. “This is our first ticker-tape parade.”
Caitlin Rocco, 22, a lifelong Liberty fan from Fresh Meadows, Queens, was also spotted along the parade route with her boyfriend James Cook, 23, and his younger brother Collin Cook, 19.
“I’ve been to Liberty’s fan since birth and I wasn’t going to miss this,” she said, wrapped in a new CVS blanket she bought due to the unexpected chilly weather.
The ticker-tape parade, followed the Liberty’s first WNBA Championship win in 28 seasons. The team won a nail-biting 67-62 Game 5 overtime victory Sunday over the Minnesota Lynx, culminated with a ceremony on the steps of City Hall at noon.
“Being able to be drafted here and knowing the work that we’ve put in to get to this point today, being at this parade, able to see so many people just celebrating us – I can’t put it into words what it means to be a part of this community, and I think I’m a New Yorker now,” guard Sabrina Ionescu said moments before the team was presented with keys to the city.
“This is the first time I’ve been able to be a part of this, but just being able to take it all in,” Ionescu added. “Seeing how many people were in the crowd, smiling [and] celebrating with their Liberty gear, it really puts into perspective what it means to bring a championship to this city and how it really takes everyone.”
The ticker-tape parade is the first in history to celebrate a local women’s sports team, and is the first in over a decade to honor a local sports team at all after 2012’s New York Giants Super Bowl win.
At the noon ceremony, Gov. Kathy Hochul took the podium to address what the championship win meant not only for fans in attendance but also those of future generations – the “thousands of little girls who can now see themselves as possibly rising up to this great position.”
Meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams – met with a smattering of boos at the start and middle of his remarks – referenced himself, comparing the Liberty’s namesake to “the greatest city in the world having a bald-headed, earring-wearing mayor.”
The last ticker-tape parade in the Big Apple was 2021’s Hometown Heroes parade celebrating frontline workers who stepped up during the coronavirus pandemic, and the last ticker-tape parade honoring a sports team took place in 2019 for the US women’s soccer team after their FIFA Women’s World Cup win.
Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello recounted the years of hard work the ladies in seafoam green put in before they finally took home the championship ring this season.
“From day one, I could see it in their eyes,” she said. “The commitment to excellence, the buy-in, the accepting of the role, and then going out there and playing one day at a time … They’re wonderful players, but they’re even better people.”
The renewed commitment to success could apparently be felt from off the court as well, as attendance records at their home arena were shattered multiple times this season, complete with sold-out games and celeb-filled sidelines.
“We have the absolutely best fans in the world,” said Keia Clarke, the CEO of the team. “We envisioned this: We wanted this parade, we wanted this day. I’m so happy it ended up being as beautiful as it is, and I’m so happy to see all of you here to enjoy this moment … [but] we’re just getting started.
“This is just the beginning,” Clarke added. “We’re going to keep this going. I know people are going to show up at Barclays Center and we’re going to keep it rocking.”
