The Metrodome’s torn roof won’t be repaired in time for the Vikings’ Monday night game with Chicago, stadium officials said Tuesday as the team prepared to use [the University of] Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium as a backup…. Workers at the university, meanwhile, began the daunting task of removing snow from the outdoor TCF Bank Stadium, which was buried after the weekend snowstorm dumped more than 17 inches in Minneapolis and caused the Metrodome’s Teflon roof to collapse early Sunday.
UPDATE (11.15am PT): The forecast for Monday night’s kickoff is 0 degrees with a potential wind chill of -18 degrees. SHRINKAGE!! WE GOT SHRINKAGE!!
It was December 8, 1968. My father took me to my first Minnesota Vikings game. I was eight years old, and I was beyond excited; I worshipped the Vikings (the sun rose and set over QB Joe Kapp), and going to a game was just about the coolest thing that had ever happened to me. Going to a Vikings game was no small undertaking; Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington was a four-hour drive from our home in northern Minnesota. Driving to the Twin Cities was to this eight-year-old represented demonstrable proof that there was life- and lots of it- outside our small town in the Great White North.
There are two things I remember vividly about the game. One, the Vikings got their butts handed to them, losing to the Los Angeles Rams (and QB Roman Gabriel, another of my heroes) 31-3. Two, I can’t remember ever being colder and more miserable than I was that afternoon. That was what NFL football in Minnesota was about in those days, and the Vikings had a reputation for being a cold-weather team. Coach Bud Grant was famous for refusing to allow heaters or heated benches on the Vikings’ sideline, something that seems heretical and foolhardy now. In that time, though, winter in Minnesota was something to be challenged head on and ultimately defeated through sheer perseverance and stubborn endurance.
The Vikings continued playing outdoors until the early ’80s, when the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome opened in downtown Minneapolis. I’ve been to the Metrodome many a time for Twins games and other events, but I’ve never been a big fan of the place. There just seemed to be something artificial about an immaculate stadium with a fabric roof supported only by air pressure. Still, it did dominate, and in time come to define, the downtown Minneapolis skyline, and like most Minnesotans, I got used to it…except for the stadium’s unfortunate proclivity for deflating after heavy snowfalls. Having fallen like a bad souffle early this past Sunday morning, the Vikings are now a team without a home…and it looks as if they’re going to be playing outdoors again. In December.
The more things change….
If you’re like most football fans, you turn on a game, root and kibbitz for three hours or so, and then get on with life. Fans generally don’t think of the monumental logistical task that is the staging of an NFL game. There’s security, concessions, verifying that the lights and scoreboards are operational, ensuring that the restrooms are properly functional…and the list goes on. Stage that same game outdoors, in December, and on less than a week’s notice…and it’s a managerial task that would test the organizational and decision-making skills of even the sanest top-notch wedding planner.
A normal game-day budget for an NFL game at the Metrodome is around $250,000. That doesn’t account for the battalions of workers required for the herculean task of removing 17 inches of snow and preparing a stadium that wasn’t designed for used in frigid December conditions. It looks as if the Vikings will be playing outdoors on Sunday, in temperatures that likely won’t come close to exceeding 32 degrees. It would be a great setting for the NHL’s annual Winter Classic, but not so great for an NFL game. This isn’t Green Bay we’re talking about, after all.
TCF Bank Stadium is a brand-new, state-of-the-art outdoor stadium on the University of Minnesota campus. It’s all of a mile from the Metrodome, but it’s light years away from the Metrodome’s air-conditioned 72 degrees. It’s easy to reminisce about how miserable I was on that early December afternoon so very long ago. The Vikings will be playing on Monday night against the Chicago Bears, and the possibility that the game could be played in single-digit temperatures is pretty high. Yeah, go ahead; ask me how much I miss Minnesota….
And I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me what engineering genius thought it was a great idea to build a domed stadium with a fabric roof supported primarily by air pressure…in Minnesota, a place famous for harsh weather and heavy snowfall. If this was the first time this sort of thing had happened, I could chalk it up to a “WHOOPS!!”…but it’s not. Isn’t it about time to put a real roof on the Metrodome? Or, better yet, why not just replace the Metrodome altogether…before the Vikings leave for L.A.??
