Across the pond go a group from the Land of 10,000 Lakes. With the Most Important NFC North Division Game Of The Week taking place in London — and some local people making the trip over the sea — I recall the time when a patron at Guv’s Place was telling about the time when the then prime minister across the pond, Tony Blair, who was a business associate of a business associate, sent him two special-species pheasants that had been shot in a hunt as a gift, to be used for cooking. Word was that he was initially going to be in another such pheasant hunt prior to the Vikings game, but it’s hard to shoot at them in the dark. (Wait, that 8:30 a.m. start was our time, not theirs).
That didn’t keep the Hudson Buffalo Wild Wings — to name one mostly-night venue, and an unlikely one at that — from opening their doors right before game time on Sunday, although not in time for very much pregame coverage. And we have to keep in mind that London is not far away from the area where the original Vikings — the ocean-going kind, not the sports team — had initially set sail hundreds of years before football was invented.
Speaking of the Vikings, their horned logo and colors are present on a special issue of cans of a name-brand cola, but the rub is that you can’t get the special price in Wisconsin. It says so right at the bottom of the ad, although in fine print. At press time, neither Coke or Pepsi had claimed responsibility for this brutal attack on Cheesehead wallets (just kidding).