As the final seconds ran off the scoreboard at Aloha Stadium yesterday, NFL fans tried to take in their final memories of the Pro Bowl in Hawai'i.

The annual all-star game, which has been played in Hawai'i since 1980, will be played in Miami's Dolphin Stadium next year, a week before the Super Bowl.

While the league and commissioner Roger Goodell have stated their intent to keep Hawai'i involved on a "rotating basis," the decision to move the Pro Bowl — which was announced in late December — did not sit well with fans at yesterday's game.

"I think it's a travesty that they're taking away this game," said Steelers' fan Matt Vigliotti. "It's definitely sad. You see it in the newspaper with all this decrease in tourism, this is another thing that's going to hurt. Next year this time, Hawai'i is going to be very, very sad that they don't have a Pro Bowl."

Goodell said the move to a week before the Super Bowl also "strengthens the (Pro Bowl)" and prevents what he calls a "somewhat anti-climactic ending to the season."

49ers' fans Robert and Soozie Boulton of Gilroy, Calif., attended their first Pro Bowl yesterday as part of a one-week vacation in Hawai'i.

"I would strongly disagree with (Goodell)," Robert Boulton said. "If you're going to do that, you might as well move it to half way through the year and make it like (Major League Baseball)."

Added Soozie Boulton: "But that's what made the NFL special, is that they were the only league to hold their all-star after the season."

Graham Watkins, who is visiting from Pittsburgh, said he probably wouldn't attend next year's game.

"One day it's going to be in Indianapolis or Detroit and who's going to want to go there to watch a Pro Bowl — that's anti-climactic," Watkins said. "No disrespect to the people of Detroit, but this is a much better place to go on vacation than Detroit."

For many local football fans, yesterday meant the end of a long-standing tradition of professional football on the first weekend of February.

"My family and I have been coming to the Pro Bowl ever since I can remember," said Patriots' fan Glenn Mendoza of 'Ewa Beach. "It's not easy for local fans to watch their teams play. Fans on the Mainland can go to games all the time, this is the one game we get a year."

Mendoza, wearing a Stephen Gostkowski jersey and holding a sign that read: "PRO BOWL, OH NO, DON'T GO," said even if the game were to return, it may have already lost its luster with local fans.

"I think they can come back, but it just won't be the same," Mendoza said. "There's kind of a feeling of betrayal, you know. For me I kind of grew up with this game."

Mendoza argued that there is no better place for the game.

"The NFL wants to be a global game, this is the best place to be for that," he said.

Numerous other signs could be found in the Aloha Stadium crowd. Some of them read: "Keep the Pro Bowl in Paradise" and "We (heart) Hawai'i."

As Denver quarterback Jay Cutler took a knee on the game's final play and media swarmed the field, 49ers' mascot Sourdough Sam, dressed in an oversized aloha shirt and grass skirt, held a sign. It read: "Thank you Hawai'i."

Said Robert Boulton: "I think you associate the Pro Bowl with Hawai'i, so I think at some point it has to come back here."