RUMFORD – Andy Cormier didn’t just celebrate Wednesday night when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series.

Cormier, of Rumford, also visited the cemetery where his father, Artie Cormier, was buried in 1992.

“The first thing I had to do was go up and see him, and tell him that the Red Sox won, and that they didn’t break the curse, they rewrote history,” Cormier said early Monday evening.

Taking a Red Sox balloon with him, he tied it to his dad’s gravesite, so the two longtime Red Sox fans could celebrate together.

He said, “This one championship takes away all the disappointment. And to see the Yankees have the world’s biggest collapse, that was just a treat beyond belief. Those 26 titles they’ve won mean nothing now.”

A Red Sox fan for 40 years, Cormier said that he began following the team in 1967 as a 5-year-old.

“My first recollection was of the Red Sox losing to St. Louis in the 1967 Series. That was the first time I can remember crying when the Red Sox lost. I went up in my room so my dad couldn’t see me,” he said.

This year was different.

Cormier and his wife, Patti, opened a sports bar/restaurant, The Penalty Box, in April on Exchange Street in Rumford.

On one inside wall, they had painted an exact replica of Fenway Park’s Green Monster scoreboard.

“If you build it, they will win,” was the Cormiers’ reasoning.

Steve Zadakis, another longtime Red Sox fan and area businessman, was equally thrilled.

People coming into his Rumford store, Treasures on the Island, on Thursday shared his excitement.

They also bought out the 12 dozen Red Sox World Series champion T-shirts that he had just brought up from Portland that morning.

“It was just pure excitement,” Zadakis said.

The highlight of his day was the “high-five” he got from an elderly lady, another long-suffering Red Sox fan.

He’s also selling his Red Sox memorabilia “all over the place” on eBay, an Internet auction company.

“When you’re a Red Sox fan and you move away, you can’t get anything outside of New England,” Zadakis said.

On Monday, he had more championship T-shirts and caps in stock, and a large order of Series flags, pennants, clocks, “even Johnny Damon clocks, because they’re the most popular,” window clings and bumper stickers on the way.

“I will have my windows plastered with them as soon as that order comes in,” he said.