Super Bowl 2014
[Guest post by DRJ]
Brilliant … or Brrrr?
“The NFL’s Big One is coming to the Big Apple.
League owners awarded the 2014 Super Bowl to New York/New Jersey on Tuesday, pegging the new $1.6 billion stadium to be shared by the Giants and Jets in East Rutherford, N.J., as the first outdoor, cold-weather site in the game’s storied history.
The result, which surprisingly went into a fourth round of voting, was expected to be a virtual fait accompli, with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell firmly behind the push to put Super Bowl XLVIII across the river from the league’s Manhattan office in the dead of winter.
New York’s bid committee addressed concerns about the potential for brutal weather with talk of returning the game to its “old school” roots and with the motto “Let’s Make History.”
Maybe they could play without helmets to make it really old school.
— DRJ
maybe they could go REALLY old school, and only allow players who haven’t used performance enhancing drugs…..
(that and call offensive holding once in awhile. %-)
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 5/25/2010 @ 4:07 pmI will only buy into it if there are NO heaters on the field.
ChrisinGilbertAZ (1de725) — 5/25/2010 @ 4:31 pmI hope it snows. Even better would be sleet.
PatAZ (9d1bb3) — 5/25/2010 @ 4:46 pmWhat they deserve is a full-fledged, Nor-easter, blizzard.
AD - RtR/OS! (bd3d6c) — 5/25/2010 @ 5:10 pmAnd Rush will be chortling from the warmth of Palm Beach.
a big bet on global warming.
clyde (76ebab) — 5/25/2010 @ 7:00 pmMy son and I were in Atlanta for SB 34. The ice storm that weekend made everything but the game miserable (Warner to Bruce and then The Tackle).
Move the Super Bowl to New Orleans every year. The combination of Mardi Gras and the Super Bowl is unbeatable.
MU789 (3d35a1) — 5/25/2010 @ 7:24 pmclyde:
Heh. They might actually believe that but, if so, it’s a losing bet.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/25/2010 @ 7:26 pmSome of the best football games I’ve attended were games played in December under sunny skies and game time temperature of 50 degrees.
And some of the worst were games played in December under gray skies and game time temperature of 15 degrees and a strong wind blowing in my face.
I think the owners that voted for this have been playing without a helmet.
MU789 (3d35a1) — 5/25/2010 @ 8:13 pmIt will probably be warmer than the -15 degrees at the December 31, 1967, Ice Bowl.
DRJ (d43dcd) — 5/25/2010 @ 8:32 pmMaybe they could make it even older school by playing it in a stadium that didn’t cost $1.6 billion dollars.
BC (8e5099) — 5/25/2010 @ 10:17 pmBC must be talking about the Coliseum….
or maybe the Rose Bowl? either way, that takes care of the weather worries, unless it rains.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 5/25/2010 @ 10:47 pmI will only buy into it if there are NO heaters on the field.
I understand that the new fields (Gillette Stadium in Boston, the new Mile High in Denver, etc.) all have heating coils underneath the playing surface for use during cold weather to keep the field from freezing. I think I once heard that at Gillette Stadium the coils can be heated to such an extent that even in zero degree weather the on-field temperature can be close to 60 F.
That won’t make it any more enjoyable for the frozen people in the stands, but I guess they figure that no one passes up a chance to attend a Super Bowl just because of weather.
JVW (36eb17) — 5/25/2010 @ 11:01 pmi’d pass up the Stupor Bowl just to avoid the crowds, no matter what the weather.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 5/25/2010 @ 11:35 pmI hear you, red. My aunt and uncle went to a Super Bowl in Tampa one year. They were told that the bus from the hotel would leave for the stadium seven hours before kickoff. When my uncle asked if there would be a later bus for them to catch, he was told no, because of the anticipated traffic and crowds they couldn’t risk sending a bus any later. Who needs that kind of aggravation when you can watch it on your couch, beer in hand?
JVW (36eb17) — 5/25/2010 @ 11:58 pmI’m from Green Bay. I was playing outside before the Ice Bowl. I didn’t thaw out until the 90s and living 6 years in SoCal.
I think this was an extremely stupid move. Brett Favre will be qb’ing one side and throw the game away as he did this year and the overtime game in Lambeau when the Giants won in OT.
PCD (1d8b6d) — 5/26/2010 @ 8:03 amTo add to the old school suggestions, how about they play in a stadium that the taxpayers weren’t forced to pay for?
KHorn (e3b330) — 5/26/2010 @ 8:42 amOh, yes, there was an electric coil system installed at Lambeau long before the ice bowl, but it failed on the day of the ice bowl. It was sold to Lombardi by a close relative of George “Papa Bear” Halas.
My band director was part of the Packers’ band at the ice bowl and told stories of how the instruments didn’t work in such cold. Therefore, no school marching bands in such a cold Super Bowl you old schoolers.
PCD (1d8b6d) — 5/26/2010 @ 10:49 amThe Cremation of Sam McGee
by Robert W. Service
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee,
Where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam
‘Round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold
Seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way
That he’d “sooner live in hell”.
On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way
Over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold
It stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze
Till sometimes we couldn’t see;
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one
To whimper was Sam McGee.
And that very night, as we lay packed tight
In our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead
Were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he,
“I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I’m asking that you
Won’t refuse my last request.”
Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no;
Then he says with a sort of moan:
“It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold
Till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ’tain’t being dead — it’s my awful dread
Of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair,
You’ll cremate my last remains.”
A pal’s last need is a thing to heed,
So I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn;
But God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day
Of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all
That was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn’t a breath in that land of death,
And I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid,
Because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say:
“You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it’s up to you
To cremate those last remains.”
Now a promise made is a debt unpaid,
And the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb,
In my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight,
While the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows —
O God! how I loathed the thing.
And every day that quiet clay
Seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent
And the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad,
But I swore I would not give in;
And I’d often sing to the hateful thing,
And it hearkened with a grin.
Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge,
And a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice
It was called the “Alice May”.
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit,
And I looked at my frozen chum;
Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry,
“Is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor,
And I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around,
And I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared —
Such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal,
And I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like
To hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled,
And the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled
Down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak
Went streaking down the sky.
I do not know how long in the snow
I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about
Ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said:
“I’ll just take a peep inside.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked”; . . .
Then the door I opened wide.
And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm,
In the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile,
And he said: “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear
You’ll let in the cold and storm —
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee,
It’s the first time I’ve been warm.”
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
ropelight (9cdba2) — 5/26/2010 @ 10:53 amBy the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.