If you're going to drive all the way to Green Bay to watch a Packers game, it's really only worth the trip if you go for the Vikings-Packers game and do so in November. I wouldn't have agreed with this statement this past Sunday after spending around five hours or so watching what was the coldest game at Lambeau Stadium in nearly 37 years.
But the more I thought about it, the more the notion made sense to me: it's Green Bay. The Frozen Tundra. One of the Shrines of Professional Football. If you're a sports fan, there are some stadiums you just have to go to, period. I don't like baseball all that much but if someone offered me tickets to Fenway or Wrigley, I'd go- because, that's what you do. You have to go those stadiums that have a sense of history and tradition, stadiums that have a sense of character about them because in this age of obscenely large playgrounds of corporate sterility and monuments to the monstrous egos of billionaires, there really aren't that many of them left.
So, we went. The Missus got to fulfill a long time dream of hers to see the Minnesota Vikings play. Uncle Train Driver got to celebrate his 50th Birthday in style. The rest of risked frostbite and damn near froze to death but it was still a great time.
First impressions: these people know how to build a stadium. A traditional bowl layout, Lambeau is gifted with a relative high rim which goes along way to keeping the wind out. (Get out of your seats and walk to the concourse, however, all you get is wind.) The resulting feeling though, was intimate and really, it felt more like a college stadium than a big, flashy pro facility- which I liked a lot.
Tempting, but resist if you can: by the third quarter, the Missus and I were hungry and cold, so we wanted to get up and move around to get some blood flowing. We ran to the bathrooms, which were heated. The thing is, your immediate reaction is one of total relief. Finally, you think, somewhere warm, but when you go back outside, it's like jumping back into a swimming pool after sitting in a hot tub for ten minutes. Not a good idea.
As for the game itself, it was surprisingly good. Minnesota's defense came to play and poor Scott Tolzein couldn't get anything going in the first half for the Packers. As a result, Minnesota had a hefty lead going into the fourth quarter, which slowly but surely evaporated as Matt Flynn took over for Tolzein and eventually forced the game into overtime.
I was pissed. At that point I was cold and was almost, almost to the point where I didn't care who won as long as somebody hurried up and did so. An extra quarter of football later and my belief that pro football's version overtime is vastly inferior to college football's overtime rules was confirmed, because the game ended in a tie.
Something I didn't know: Green Bay plays this song after every touchdown, a tradition that started way back in 1985. It works for them. I actually kind of liked it... and as obnoxious as the constant "And that's another Packers... (crowd yells together) FIRST DOWN!" got, that worked for them as well.
It was one hell of an experience and I'm glad I went. I don't know if I'd want to go again in November though.
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