Lambeau Field and the Packers Vs Vikings

Hey Everybody.  So the last time I checked in with you lot I was talking about the Appleton museum and the Packer Mania that keeps a tight grip on this northern Wisconsin region.  But one thing I didn’t know, that I just found out recently, is that our hotel, the Paper Valley Radisson, ALWAYS houses the visiting team when the Packers have a home game!  So, according to Daniel, the Paper Valley Radisson Sports Bar Bartender, (‘Sup Daniel!) the Saturday night before a home game is Notorious for multiple, random fire alarms, siren wailing, or whatever other sleep disrupting hijinks that can be imagined by the diehard (or maybe slightly unbalanced) Pack fans, throughout the night and into the wee small hours of the morning.  Makes sense.  But can you imagine the outpouring THIS week (sliiiiightly hotel sanctioned or not) of diehard Cheese-Heads to disrupt the sleep of the hated Minnesota Vikings and… wait, what was their quarterback’s name again???  WHAT?  How did we get caught up in the middle of this stuff Again??? Noooobody’s sleeping at Paper Valley on Saturday night!  Although, I bet you Brett’s gonna stay somewhere else.  He’s gotta know the way it would go down after 16 years playing here… (and Maybe he still has some friends around town :)  maaaaaybe.

Anyway… when “said” visiting team is ready to make the trip to the game, they will drive the 25 minutes or so up the 41 to the frozen (or not-so-frozen) Tundra of LAMBeAU Field; the hallowed ground that has housed the Packers for the 

last 53 years.  And on Friday my boy Mike and I made the trip for ourselves…  It was a miserable day.  Cold, rainy, AND windy, and, Magically, the normal stadium tours were unavailable for the few hours that we were there (we had to be back by 2 for cleanup rehearsal :)  I was okay with it for two reasons.  One, I wasn’t dressed for the rain and cold, and two, the Packer Hall of Fame was open AND indoors.  And it’s really a fun place to visit. 

The Packers have been playing football since 1919, when some guy named Curly Lambeau formed a team with some his friends. At that time Curly worked at the Indian Packing Company in town, and one day he talked the IPC into giving him permission to use their athletic field for practice, and to provide the team with jerseys and some equipment.  So initially the club was identified in its early publicity as a project of the company (later the ACME packing co)… and they were thus named.  In 1921 they joined the NFL, and the REST… as they say, is history.  They’ve got 25 players in the NFL hall of fame!  19 Divisional Championships, 9 NFL Championships, and 3 Super Bowl Championships later, we have the Packers as we know them today.  A team, uniquely owned by their own fans (and perhaps the most loyal fans anywhere), playing in the smallest market in American Professional Sports, with Brett Favre at the helm… oh I mean, uh… with Aaron Rodgers at the helm… and… wait a minute, this can’t be right… Brett Favre coming to town with the rival Vikings… WHAT?  You canNOT write this stuff!  :)

Obviously the Packer Hall of Fame will one day include Favre, and even today pays plenty of homage to their ironman of 16 years.  I’ve actually visited Lambeau once before, when I was a kid in 1989, back when the Packers quarterback was a guy named Don Majikowski… that’s right, remember the MaJik mAn?  At that time the Packers were in about a 20 year funk among the leagues cellar-dwellers, and even though Majikowski is in the Packer Hall of Fame, the museum itself seems to be in denial about those years.  They tend to skip right from Bart Starr to Brett Favre.  I enjoyed that.  It’s understandable.

And THEN of course there’s Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach for which, oh by the way, the NFL Championship Trophy is named!  Last week I mentioned that, while dining at his steakhouse, I could only think of one of his famous quotes.  Well predictably, the Packer Hall of Fame had a few more.  Here’s a couple standouts:

“Football is like life - it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.”   

“If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.”

“I don't think there's a punch-line scheduled, is there?”

“The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.”

 “Winners never quit and quitters never win.”

 And my personal favorite: “We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time.”

 We’ll see who runs out of time on Sunday.  The Packers?  Or Brett Favre?

Thanks for Hangin with the Underdogs  :)