The Frozen Tundra

While we were planning the trip to Wisconsin described in THIS SPACE yesterday, the thought struck me that I was probably never going to be in Milwaukee ever again, and if I'm going to be there in September, then by God, I'm going to fulfill a lifelong wish and I'm going to go to Green Bay and see Lambeau Field.  Actually, the "lifelong wish" was to see a game played at Lambeau Field.  I knew that that wouldn't be possible, so a little bit of research on the interwebs revealed that the Packers offer tours of their stadium, as well as their Packers Hall of Fame, on a daily basis, so back in July we booked such a tour for Tuesday, September 10.  Obviously, on a gorgeous September day with temps in the eighties, the famed Tundra of Lambeau Field wasn't so frozen, but that took nothing away from the experience.

This post will be mainly just pictures from our tour, but a few fun facts before that.  As the 21st century dawned, the Packers found themselves in the bottom five of the NFL in terms of revenues, and they knew that something had to be done.  In 2004, Ron Wolf was hired as head of football operations, and his realization was that drastic changes had to be made to their Stadium Operations, or they might soon become the Oklahoma City or Las Vegas Packers.  So drastic renovations were undertaken, that included expanded seating with luxury suites, and a stadium atrium with dining facilities and a Packers Hall of Fame that could be open seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year.

In the picture you see above, the lower bowl of the stadium are all bleacher type seats, and they have a capacity of 60,000.  With the renovations that Wolf effected, the stadium now seats 81,000.  The newer seats are all chairback seats and luxury suite seating.  The bleachers remain with each "seat" being eighteen inches wide.  To replace those with chairback seats (23 or 24 inches), the capacity would have been decreased by about 8,000 seats, all of them held by season ticket holders, so the bleachers were not going to go away.

So what the Packers now have in Lambeau Field is a facility that is open year round for tours, weddings, high school proms, business meetings etc, and the Packers revenues now rank in the Top Ten in the NFL.  Speaking of the tours, several millions of people have taken them over the years, from all fifty states and from over 140 foreign countries.  In our group on Tuesday, there was a gentleman from England and young couple from Switzerland who said the sole purpose of their trip to the USA was to come to Green Bay!  And ours was not the only tour group of the day. Two others were taking place simultaneously to ours, and we saw at least three others beginning by the time we left the stadium.

Also, you notice that there are no lines or markings on the field.  When the grass gets cut, and they cut it every two days, all painted lines and markings disappear.  The field is then repainted on the day before a Game Day.

So some vacation pics for your viewing pleasure.

These pics were taken from the "roof level" beneath the scoreboard in the one end zone.  People in the Suites can come out there to watch the game and pose for photos.  Not sure I'd want to stand out there on a really cold day.  As you can see, we wore the Steelers' road white jerseys.

When they take you onto the field, you go through the tunnel that the Packers go through, and they play recorded music of crowd noise.  Pretty cool.

Various photos from field level.....

(To be read in a Howard Cosell voice)

Surveying the very goal line where Jerry Kramer blocked Jethro Pugh, enabling Bart Starr to score the winning touchdown in the famous "Ice Bowl" game.

These walls are eight feet high.  

It ain't easy to do a Lambeau Leap.

Now on the the Packers Hall of Fame.....

There are Lombardi quotes throughout the place.

Yep, I am sitting at Lombardi's desk.  Probably the very phone 

he used when he told Art Rooney that Bill Austin 

would make a perfect Head Coach for the Steelers.

The "Lombardi Packers"

Taylor, Kramer, Gregg, Hornung, Starr.

Lombardi, Davis, Nitschke, Adderley, Wood

The 13 Below Theater shows about a 12 minute

film on the famed Ice Bowl game.

The statue you see has steam coming out of his mouth!

Yet another quote.  I told you that they were all over the place.

I wonder how many people coming through the place would "get" this cartoon.

The Packers four Super Bowl trophies.  

Only two of them are "Vince Lombardi Trophies"

I wonder how many Wisconsin 

TV rooms have this picture hanging in them?

A giant replica graces the Lambeau Atrium.

The only part of the tour that I did not like.

Finally, these statues of Vince and Curly grace the main entrance to the Stadium on Vince Lombardi Drive.

As all tours of just about any place you go do, this one ended at the entrance to the Packers gift shop, and we did our share to boost the Green Bay economy while there, although we took a pass on this item:

This full size Packers helmut in Swarovski crystal could have been ours for a mere $10,000.

Okay, I hope that I didn't go on too long and bore you with this.  I know that looking at other peoples' vacation pictures can be a drag, but if you are a pro football fan, I am hoping that you will forgive me.

Oh, one other question.  As you read this post, how many of you used a John Facenda voice in your head whenever you came upon the words "Lambeau Field"?  Be honest now.

Championship Predictions

The Grandstander brings a 7-1 record for Playoffs Predictions into NFL Championship Weekend.  Astounding!

In the NFC, I was amazed last week at both the performance of the Atlanta Falcons and the individual performance of the Packers' Aaron Rodgers.  It looks to be a set up for a terrific game with a lot of scoring.  It is hard to go against Rodgers, but I am going to play a hunch and choose the FALCONS to defeat Green Bay and make their second trip to the Super Bowl.

In the AFC, well, we all know that the New England Patriots are the NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS, for God's sake.  Belichick, Brady, and all that.  Yes, they are formidable. Yes, they are favored, and yes, it will be huge task to defeat them.  However, back in September, I predicted that the Steelers would win the Super Bowl, and Tomlin, Roethlisberger, Bell, Brown, and a young and an improving-by-the-week defense are pretty good, too, so I see no reason to back away from that this late in the game. So it will the the STEELERS over the Patriots on Sunday, and a record ninth trip to the Super Bowl for the franchise.

If I am right, and we end up with a Steelers-Falcons pairing in the big game, I will offer a third prediction:  Endless wailing and gnashing of teeth from all the sporting pundits bemoaning the fact that there will be no match-up between Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. Hey, I concede that those two guys are capital G Great, but have you ever witnessed such a slurp-a-thon as we have seen in the last week over two players? I mean...

This endless moaning will also lead to the inevitable speculation of "Who will even bother to watch a Pittsburgh-Atlanta game, when it could have been Brady vs. Rodgers?"

There you have it.  As always, watch, but don't bet.

Patriots and Cardinals Advance

Off the top of my head thoughts on yesterday's NFL Playoff games.....

• I thought Rob Gronkowski was supposed to be injured.
• Why would any team win the coin toss and then choose to defer, thus giving the ball to Tom Brady and the Pats to start the game?
• When Brady hit Gronk for a TD on that opening drive, I posted this on Facebook: "The Chiefs will not lead at any point in this game."  I believe I had that.
• That was a marvelous, textbook, time consuming touchdown drive that the Chiefs engineered in the fourth quarter.  Only trouble is that it consumed too much time and the Chiefs were down by fourteen, not seven, points at the time.  What could Andy Reid have possibly been thinking?
• A lot of the so-called experts said that the Patriots were vulnerable in this game.  Sure didn't look that way to me.

• For about three and one-half quarters that Packers-Cardinals game was a bit of a snoozer.  But then...WOW.  A game like that is why you follow sports.
• For those first three and one-half quarters, was it a function of really good defense, or a couple of inept offenses?
• I admit that I didn't see the Cardinals all year, but if Carson Palmer played like that all year, how did they win thirteen games?
• In winning that game last night, Palmer may well have been the luckiest player in the NFL all season.  Especially after that fourth quarter interception in the end zone that he lobbed up to Green Bay.   That was a certifiably awful throw.
• Did you notice that the Cardinals started to make things happen when they decided to start throwing the ball to Larry Fitzgerald?
• That game tying drive that Aaron Rodgers put together, with no time outs, less than a minute to play, and after being sacked back to the two yard line, and included not just one, but two unbelievable Hail Mary passes, will be forgotten because the Packers lost the game, but that was just Amazing and Unbelievable with a capital A and a capital U.
• How in God's name does a defense allow Larry Fitzgerald to be standing all by himself with no defender within 15 yards of him?  In overtime of a playoff game no less.

And not to pick on the zebras, but how can that guy screw up a coin flip? Also, and this isn't the Officials' fault, but the endless debates and reviews on what is or is not a "Catch" are totally ridiculous and absurd.  That it was even subject to debate both on one Fitzgerald reception and the Green Bay reception that tied the game was, well, I hate to use the same world twice in the same paragraph, but it was absurd!  And we have seen that dance in almost every NFL game this season.  Something really needs to be done about that.

Looking forward to that Steelers-Broncos tussle today.  More so than how an impaired Ben Roethlisberger will play today, it will come down to this: Which version of the Steelers defense will show up today, and which version of Peyton Manning will show up for Denver?

#HereWeGo.