By 10:12 Sunday night, the game was over and the Steelers had their six pack. By 10:13, the doors at Dick's Sporting Goods in Robinson were unlocked. And maybe 15 minutes after that -- though TV news images might have you believe that all of Steelerdom had pushed into the streets of Oakland and the South Side -- fans began pushing into The Mall at Robinson.
"They must have had TVs in their cars," joked Gary DeMarchis, store manager, "because they were here fast," gobbling up every last championship T-shirt, sweatshirt and cap available.
So fast they came, and so numerously, that lots of people drove in, looked at the crowds and lines, and drove away, only to return yesterday.
"There must have been 1,000 people here Sunday night," one shopper reported.
Retailers across the region were reporting the same level of enthusiasm, saying sales of Steelers' Super Bowl merchandise was meeting or exceeding expectations. Many of the larger retailers -- Dick's, Macy's and Dunham's Sports among them -- were open by 6 a.m. yesterday to accommodate the early-rising T-shirt seekers.
Taryn Eonta of Sewickley was not among them, but what she lacked in morning ambition she made up for in sheer volume. Her bag was stuffed with a dozen T-shirts and one hooded sweatshirt, the fruits of a shopping list put together by her husband and children, who attended the Super Bowl.
"I'm on a mission," she said. She first visited the Dick's along McKnight Road, but didn't find the selection to her liking. The Dick's in the North Hills was more crowded than the one in Robinson, she said.
Though signs of recession are all around us -- Macy's announced 7,000 layoffs yesterday -- few could be found at Pittsburgh-area shopping malls. A steady parade of shoppers browsed the merchandise yesterday at Dick's, JCPenney and Macy's; many of them were looking to upgrade out of the "AFC Champions" T-shirts and hoodies they purchased just two weeks ago.
"We had people waiting to get into our stores," said Macy's spokeswoman Heather Hannan. Macy's, like Dick's, opened shortly after the Super Bowl ended, around 10:30 p.m.
"We did get a nice crowd for the locker room T-shirts" Sunday night, she said.
At Hometowne Sports in Station Square, sales associate Eric Owen said receipts were better than he'd hoped, given the Steelers relatively fresh Super Bowl success, in 2006.
"I thought it would have slowed down a little bit," he said. But "it's been fast ... there were a lot of people here after the game."
Though lines were long, especially at Dick's, and though some retailers were having a difficult time keeping merchandise on the shelves, the primary customer complaint yesterday seemed to be that the "locker room" hats -- the ones donned by the Steelers immediately after the game -- were blue and green, which happen to be the team colors of the Seattle Seahawks, the team the Steelers vanquished in Super Bowl XL.
That didn't stop people from buying them, though.
