Outdoor Minneapolis Football and Mother Nature's League...

Last year the Underdogs were in Minneapolis at the last regular season baseball game ever at the Metrodome, before the Twins opened their new outdoor stadium this past spring.  Football has remained in the dome however, as the NFL’s Vikings have played every home game there since 1981.  Well, that is until last week… when seventeen inches of winter snow and severe winds caused the roof to cave in.  Oh man, did you see all that snow falling through the roof?  The footage was amazing!

So that leads us to tonight, when the Vikings will play their first home game outdoors in almost 30 years, at the University of Minnesota’s TCF Stadium.  How strange is that?  You’d think that the Great North Vikings, the famed Purple People Eaters, would have thick skins and a tough-as-nails mentality right?  But in reality, these guys have been playing for the last 30 years as if they called Miami home… or San Diego.  They’re used to playing in perfectly comfortable conditions.  Basically they’ve given away their home field advantage.  They play in Minneapolis for crying out loud!  The Buffalo Bills, Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, Philadelphia Eagles, New England Patriots, and the two New York teams rough it outdoors in frozen weather every winter week?  Why have the Vikings gone the way of the Prom queen?  Well, having been in Minneapolis in December before, I would guess that’s it’s because… um, it’s crAZY cOLD OUTSIDE!!!  They link their downtown buildings with skywalks in Minneapolis because it gets so bone chillingly cold there!  Oh and if you need some advice on how to deal with the Minnesota cold check out my cuz, Dr. Robinson in this link.  http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/video/Cold-Weather-Calls-for-Preparation-from-Northlanders-111475519.html?vid=a      

Brett Favre has a great history of playing in Cold Weather Games

One of the great and unique things about football in American sports is that they play the games.  No matter what the weather conditions are the game goes on.  In baseball if it rains even remotely hard they delay or postpone the game.  As tough as Hockey guys are, they never have to deal with any wind chill, and basketball players?... Forget it.  They have 12 prom queens to a side by comparison.  In football, they play the games.  Period.  And this ideology has created some fantastic, almost mythological, contests throughout the years.  

The Chicago Cardinals won the NFL Championship in 1948

1948 the Chicago Cardinals won the NFL Championship against the Eagles in a Blizzard.  In 1981, the Bengals beat the Chargers for the AFC Championship in The Freezer Bowl (there was a negative 59 degree wind-chill that day in Cincinnati!)  In 1982 (The Snow Plow game) the Patriots beat the Dolphins 3-0.  How’s that for a football score?  And of course the 1967 NFL Championship game, also known as The Ice Bowl, the Packers beat the Cowboys on the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field.  And even though these days the league only puts SuperBowls in warm weather cities, in 2007 my Bears had to play for the Championship on a relentlessly rainy Miami night.  Nobody could run an offense in that hurricane right?  Although somehow during the half-time show Prince was able to play his guitar beautifully… and he wasn’t lip-synching either!  I checked.  Gotta be one of the best half-time performances ever, I would think.  Y'know, if anybody keeps track of that sort of thing.

Anyway, I don’t think those Bears had anything to complain about really; they were pretty much over-matched in everyway by Peyton Manning and the Colts that year.  In fact, if the weather had been better they probably would have lost by a much worse score.

At the Frozen Tundra... but INside :)

But today’s Bears find themselves in another position to make history.  They can clinch the NFC North Division title with a win tonight in the frigid Minneapolis air, and it should stand to reason that they have the advantage over their perennial rivals.  The Bears almost always play outside.  And what stadium gets colder than Soldier Field in Chicago?  Tonight pretty much gives them an extra home game.  While the Los Angeles Vikings are used to playing in the tropical Metrodome, the Bears have Grit-and-Beared it for as long as anyone can remember.  It’s the reason they’ve never had a finesse passing game… ever.  It’s the reason they’ve always been defensively oriented.  It’s the reason that opposing teams dread when they are scheduled to play there between November and January.  And it’s the reason that Bears fans are insane! 

So as we go into this pivotal Monday Night game tonight in Minneapolis, we Underdogs are reminded of one more quality that makes American Football so fantastic.

Mother nature has a roster spot.

Oh, and apparently Father Time is going to make an appearance too, since Brett Favre had decided to play tonight.  As recently as yesterday he was listed as inactive because of a shoulder injury.

Of course he decided to play.  The drama  just never stops in the NFL. 

Let’s go BEARS!!!

Thanks for reading,   

This is the underdogs.