On This Date In Saints History: June 16, 2010

Good morning, Canal Street Chronicles. In this, the heart of darkness of the most challenging offseason in Saints history, I bring you a ray of nostalgic sunshine.

Two years ago today, the members of the New Orleans Saints family received their Super Bowl XLIV Championship rings at the historic Roosevelt Hotel on Baronne Street in New Orleans. [Want to treat your dear old dad this Sunday? Here's the dish on the Roosevelt's 2012 Father's Day Brunch (fair warning: it ain't cheap). If you go, I'm sure they'll let you snoop around to find the room where the rings were given out.]

Remember that one time when the Saints won the Super Bowl? Yeah, it was awesome.

Slip away from all the crap and litigation and drama of today as we recall more about that special time and uncover other related bits of Saints Super Bowl Ring history...

I remember the build-up to this being pretty cool. A couple of weeks before the ceremony, Dave found a sneak peek at the ring on Facebook (check out all our comments in the thread), and as I ooohed and aaaahed, some folks started incorporating ring images as their profile pics. (BTW, This was my sig quote at the time: We've got 27 ways to add up to 11 (players on the field). I came up with another one last night. -- GW - GAAAA! I also had the "knock them the f*** out" quote at one time, too. I'm not proud of it now.)

Here's part of the intro to Dave's "morning after" piece consisting of tweets and pictures: One Ring to Rule Them All.

The boys finally got their official championship bling during last nights ring ceremony held at The Roosevelt Hotel in downtown New Orleans. As you can guess, they were very excited and took to Twitter to share their feelings with the world.

Want more pictures? Dig the ring ceremony photo gallery from the nola.com.

"Unreservedly delicious" is how James Varney described the event in his account. Jeff Duncan wrote this article on how Pay-loo chose the 219 people to actually receive Super Bowl rings, while T-P/nola.com colleague Susan Langenhennig detailed the ring itself.

And even after the ceremony concluded, a few ring-related stories popped up from time to time...

Last September, the Saints presented a ring to Steve Gleason, and here's the Greg Bensel tweet that made it into a Fanshot on CSC at the time:

Saints gave Steve Gleason a super bowl ring tonight at a very emotional gathering of friends n family...Mayor Landrieu gave him key to the city, Coach Payton gave him the ring and Scott Fujita gave him hell. Steve pronounced that ALS has Fuc%^ed with the wrong dude!

Stanley Arnoux had a little trouble keeping up with his ring in June of 2011. Some of us doubted his story, but then, ten days after the initial claims, vinification for him!

Poor Mark Brunell hit the financial skids in 2011 and had to file a bankruptcy plan involving the sale of his ring.

And I'm sorry, but try as I might, we can't really escape all the current crap - in this July 2010 MMQB column from Peter King that includes a bit about the Saints rings (Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me), he also talks about GW and the importance of defensive intensity:

3. Gregg Williams needs to keep the Saints' D feisty...

I credit Williams, the pedal-to-the-metal defensive coordinator who challenged Brees and the offense every day in practice last year...

Williams needs to keep the intensity coming on defense for the Saints to have a chance to win again.

Where's the line, Petie-boy? Are you encouraging bounties?...hmm, why wasn't this part of Goodell's evidence purge yesterday...say, has PK been subpoenaed yet?

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Now that I've walked you down Saints Super Bowl Ring memory lane, what else do you remember about that time? Also, if you have your own favorite articles/links from the coverage of this big event that I have missed, please share them below in the comment thread.

That glorious 2010 offseason sure contrasts starkly with the Lockout/Strike offseason of 2011, and the S***storm of 2012, doesn't it? I'm almost afraid to ask what's next for the Saints and their fans in 2013 (hopefully Lombardi Gras II: The Smell of Fear).