Defining moments. Our lives are dotted with them. Good and bad. For long-suffering New England sports fans, the New England Patriots’ dramatic last-second 20-17 victory over the heavily favored St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI will be one of those moments.

It was the 665th game in the Patriots’ 42-year existence.

Adam Vinatieri’s game-winning 48-yard field goal will forever be stored in our memory banks.

It will be located in the compartment next to Bobby Orr’s airborne overtime game-winner that gave the Boston Bruins the 1970 Stanley Cup.

Also occupying that compartment is the Big Bad Bruins of 1972 who brawled their way to Boston’s last Stanley Cup. They also scored a league-high 330 goals that season behind MVP Orr and Phil Esposito.

There will be a spot in the same compartment allocated to Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, and the 1986 Boston Celtics, the last New England pro franchise to win a championship before this year.

And although they didn’t win the World Series, the Cinderella 1967 Boston Red Sox bring a smile to the faces of New England fans.

There is also a compartment stored in the swampy bayou of our minds that we try to ignore.

Bucky Dent and Desmond Howard are happily piloting two of the swamp boats. Joe Morgan, whose bloop hit decided the 1975 World Series, is steering another.

Bill Buckner is living like a prisoner, floating adrift on a motorless raft along with Rich Gedman, who allowed the Mets to tie game six in the 1986 World Series by not moving his feet and allowing Bob Stanley to be assessed a game-tying wild pitch.

But let’s put sports into perspective. They are a source of entertainment. They enable us to step away from our everyday lives for a couple of hours and become spectators.

We don’t have to worry about the mortgage payment, the college tuition, or the tooth that will have to eventually be extracted.

Sports certainly can’t be compared to the events that impact our lives like the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

But they certainly do play a role in the healing process and the Super Bowl did just that.

Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney’s spiritual song “Freedom” and his good-natured banter with the Fox broadcasters, including his rendition of “Hard Day’s Night” with Terry Bradshaw, were memorable.

Just as memorable was his echoing his and his nation’s support for America. After we secured our freedom from them, the English have become and always will be our greatest ally.

McCartney also mentioned that it was only fitting to have a team called the Patriots involved in this Super Bowl.

And it was appropriate that the hugely popular Irish band U2, featuring one of the world’s premier humanitarians in lead singer Bono, played at halftime with the backdrop being comprised of names of those killed in the terrorist attacks.

It left a lasting memory as did the TV shots of Patriot guard Joe Andruzzi’s three brothers, all New York firefighters who survived the attacks.

Whether the Patriots were a team of destiny will be discussed indefinitely.

The fact they had to rely on a spine-tingling, last-minute drive pioneered by a fearless young quarterback (Tom Brady) was appropriate.

After all, we are New Englanders and to have a fumble return for a clinching TD in the fourth quarter would have been too easy. It had to be nullified by a Willie McGinest penalty.

After all, we wouldn’t have been subjected to the customary nail-biting as we waited to have victory clutched from our grasps.

Not this time.

Larry Mahoney’s column runs every Wednesday. He can be reached at 990-8231 or by e-mail at lmahoney@bangordailynews.net.