By Zack Farmer and Khalida Sarwari
The San Francisco 49ers’ dramatic win on Saturday, paired with an upset win by the New York Giants on Sunday, means there will be another playoff game at Candlestick Park this weekend, and tickets go on sale Wednesday morning.
The 49ers, who are one win away from their sixth Super Bowl appearance, will play in the team’s first NFC Championship game since 1998 at 3 p.m. Sunday.
Tickets go on sale to season ticket holders at 10 a.m. Wednesday, and to the general public at 1 p.m. Purchasers will be limited to four tickets per order.
All tickets are sold through Ticketmaster and can be purchased online at www.ticketmaster.com or by calling (800) 745-3000.
Hundreds of people are already offering tickets to the game on Craigslist, and one person is selling a 49ers rally towel from Saturday’s game against the New Orleans Saints for $75.
The 49ers returned to their practice facility in Santa Clara Monday and began their preparation for the Giants.
“We have more than enough time to get ready for this team. There’s going to be a need for a laser-like focus here. We really need to focus on our task here,” 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh said. “It’s a big game. It’s a great opponent, that’s where our thoughts will be.”
Harbaugh’s team has to defend its home field one more time and said the capacity crowd at Candlestick made a difference.
“Our fans turned that stadium into a fortress. That’s as good as it’s going to get,” he said. “We got 70,000 in a city behind us. It felt good. It felt like an advantage.”
With the Super Bowl only one game away, Niners fever is going around, and it’s contagious.
Lefty O’Doul’s Restaurant and Lounge, which had run out of “booze” after Saturday’s game, had its supply replenished Monday in preparation for the Niners’ playoff game Sunday, a restaurant spokesman said.
“You couldn’t even get in,” spokesman Lee Houskeeper said about
Saturday’s crowd. “Stake out your booth, your territory and make friends with the bartender early.”
Lefty O’Doul’s was the “World Series Headquarters” in the 2010 season when the San Francisco Giants made its run to its first championship since moving west and Houskeeper said, not believing in a jinx, that he and O’Doul’s are already making Super Bowl plans.
“We’re going all the way,” Houskeeper said. “We’re absolutely convinced we’re going to the Super Bowl.”
Houskeeper expects an “invasion of New Yorkers” and said many true Niners fans will walk around the corner to the Gold Dust Lounge for the game.
If anyone is still looking for a 49ers jersey, they might be hard pressed to find one.
Schristian Gonzalez, who works at the Champs Sports store at Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco, said the store has sold all of its 49ers jerseys and is running low on other 49ers merchandise.
“The team is doing it,” Gonzalez said. “(People) are buying them like it’s nothing.”
Sports Authority in Daly City is also seeing the effects of the 49ers’ success, and has sold out of nearly all the team’s merchandise.
Store manager Phil Phan said he doesn’t expect much more merchandise to roll into the store, but that once he gets any, it will immediately hit the shelves.
