A teacher from Richmond, B.C., will be living his Super Bowl dreams on Sunday when the Seattle Seahawks take on the Denver Broncos, and he has his former students to thank.

Strength and conditioning coach Ryan Strachan has built a shrine to the Seattle Seahawks in his classroom at RC Palmer Secondary, and is often seen in the school's hallways wearing blue, bright green and silver.

The die-hard Seahawks fan has been a season ticket holder for years. Going to the Super Bowl to support his team has always been a dream, but never a realistic possibility.

He told some of his former basketball students how disappointed he was that he would be watching the game from home this weekend.

"He texted all of us on Sunday saying, you know, this is my dream to go to the Super Bowl. But, you know, on a teacher's salary it's really hard to just drop thousands of dollars for a weekend," said Strachan's former student Aman Bindra.

That prompted the alumni to start fundraising.

"Guys started saying 'I'll donate one hundred myself' ... and now we're close to $1,500," said Bindra.

"He was pretty much like a second father to us growing up because, you know, we were 13 to 17-year-olds. We spent five years every day after school in the gym, probably three hours a day, seven days a week."

When Strachan found out what the students were doing, he thought they were joking. Now he is very grateful.

"I'm just absolutely stunned by it, just an incredible gesture, by a group of, you know, really, really nice kids that I had the privilege to teach and coach a few years back."

While his Super Bowl ticket cost about $850, Strachan says the entire trip will set him back about $3,000. But he's thrilled simply to be going.

He flies to New York on a red-eye flight Wednesday night.