Energizing the fan base

When Vai Sikahema played for the Philadelphia Eagles, home games were so loud he could barely hear himself think.

When he played for the Arizona Cardinals, he and his teammates used to joke that home games were so quiet they could actually hear their wives think.

“The wives’ section was right behind our bench,” said Sikahema, a running back and returner for the Cardinals during their first three seasons in Arizona, when the team played at Sun Devil Stadium. “We used to laugh that we could actually hear our wives making plans for where we were going to eat dinner after the game. . . . We’d say, ‘Hey, sounds like the Lomaxes are going to eat at Ruby Tuesday’s after the game. We’ll meet you over there.’ ”

Today, two decades later, the plans of both the Cardinals and Eagles are considerably more ambitious. The winner of today’s NFC championship game grabs a spot in Super Bowl XLIII.

Whereas these teams have some commonalities -- high-scoring offenses led by Super Bowl quarterbacks, underrated defenses -- their fan bases are as different as, well, Philadelphia and Phoenix.

“Folks from the East Coast have a reputation for being edgy,” said Sikahema, now a TV sportscaster in Philadelphia. “Philadelphia football fans, specifically, are very edgy. They’re tough. They follow their football religiously there. They live and die by the Eagles and their fortunes.

“And out here [in Arizona], I think folks are on the bandwagon with this run the Cardinals are having. Obviously, it hasn’t always been that way. And if the Cardinals lose, I think people will go back to what they’re doing. And it will still be 73 degrees here.”

The Eagles, for instance, have 79 consecutive sellouts and have a season-ticket waiting list of 70,000. Their last TV blackout was their 1999 season opener -- against Arizona, incidentally -- which was Andy Reid’s first game as coach. Tickets have been scarce ever since.

The Cardinals are only starting to gather that type of momentum. It took them just six minutes to sell out their allotment of tickets to today’s game, and that includes adding extra seats in the end zone. But just two weeks earlier, for a first-round playoff game against Atlanta, the Cardinals needed two 24-hour extensions from the NFL to avoid a TV blackout. (Regardless, they have sold out all of their 32 games at University of Phoenix Stadium.)

“The Philly fan base is steeped in tradition,” said Seth Joyner, a former linebacker for the Eagles and Cardinals who now lives in Arizona. “When you think about Arizona, the Cardinals have had to build a fan base. And I would say for the large part over the past few years they’ve been able to do that.

“The greatest thing for the Arizona fan base is the fact that we had a Super Bowl here last year. When we opened the new stadium, I think a lot of the reason we were able to sell out was because the Super Bowl was coming, and people wanted to get season tickets so they could partake in the Super Bowl lottery.”

In a way, supporters of both the Cardinals and Eagles can call themselves long-suffering fans. Philadelphia has never won a Super Bowl and is surrounded in the NFC East by the ring-laden Washington Redskins, Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants.

The Cardinals, meanwhile, went 61 years between hosting playoff games. (Until the Atlanta game, they hadn’t done so since 1947 when they were the Chicago Cardinals.) They are the only NFC team that has not played in a conference championship game. Until today.

Arizona Coach Ken Whisenhunt has yet to say whether the retractable roof on his team’s stadium will be opened or closed, calling that a game-time decision. But the expectation is the roof will be closed, so the Cardinals can take advantage of the crowd noise.

Not so long ago, the concept of crowd noise in Arizona -- at least the kind that makes a difference -- was a fantasy. Except when people came to cheer for the visiting team.

Former Cardinals center Ed Cunningham recalls an awkward situation during his rookie year, when he first took the field for a sold-out home game against the Dallas Cowboys.

“I was with the kickers, and we were the first people out on the field for warmups,” Cunningham said. “All of a sudden, the boos start cascading down. I looked around to see if there were any Cowboys coming out with us. Nope, it was just us Cardinals. I looked up into the stands and it was all silver and blue. I bet there were about 50,000 people in Cowboys gear. Booed at our home stadium. It was the most embarrassing thing ever.”

But these are different Cardinals, and these are different fans -- supercharged and inspired by a red-and-white team that’s come out of the blue.

The way Joyner sees it, however, Cardinals fans have a long way to go to catch up with the loyalty and devotion of Eagles fans. He calls that legendary.

“There are people who recognize me here, and they know I’m part of this community,” he said of Arizona. “But when I go back to Philly, it’s just pure love. I walk down the street and the fans are like, ‘We need you, man. Why don’t you come back and play.’ And I’m like, ‘Dude, I’m 47 years old. There’s nothing left in the tank.’

“But that’s the way it is. Once they love you in Philadelphia, they love you forever.”

Even so, he’s not leaving Arizona.

“Hey,” he said, “I don’t do cold.”

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sam.farmer@latimes.com