So now climate change has sacked The NFL. The raging fires around L.A. are no joke, but have done what even all the bad press could not — kicked the butt of the area’s entertainment industry in the form of nearly cancelling a pro football playoff game.
The Phoenix Cardinals were charitable enough to step in and volunteer their stadium and to host the game that allowed the Rams from even further west, to come out of the gates strong and never look back to handily defeat the favored Minnesota Vikings. In the end, wild fires could not quench the wild card game. In fact, they put it on the Monday Night Football main stage.
Following fall flooding, we have fires blazing, so this instead of a game played where temperatures, in preseason, reach around 125 degrees. That’s Fahrenheit, if anyone’s counting. Say hey, they could have played the contest in the Twin Cities, their Lambeau even if Lambs by comparison, where at the time the balmy temps were below zero.
Or move the game to some odd stadium in northern California, where the winds would have been high enough to derail an air game where even as it was, no team reached near 300 passing yards. The same winds cruised down south and gave wings to Boeings or such, enabling the Cardinals to reportedly fly in two plane loads of ticket holders from California so they wouldn’t have to miss the one-sided contest. The other 99 percent or so had to watch only if they could get access to a TV. Direct or so. (It still might have been too hot to drive.) Still, one has to give chops to the Cards for trying, and doing as much as they did.
The NFL went all out to give the Rams, which although have a poorer season record, were the home team (oops would have been), by virtue of having won their division, a “we’re hosting” feel. You know, like the Grammys or Oscars. There even was a great big Ram head and horns — we don’t know if Dodge trucks were a game sponsor — painted at the 50 yard line, spreading out to about the 45s on each side. Even Rams, whether players or animals, have been known to have forsaken the surrounding desert in summer for some AC — like in the luxury suites?
Or, how about facing off at Fenway, where if you’d do the Lambeau Leap it might be into The Green Monster of a wall. Then if the opposition scored, in the next quarter when the teams changed ends …
And this winter especially, you’d face that same Lambeau cold on the home fields if many were hosted in the northeastern Cities … And in a Florida football stadium, the roof blew off … And remember just what Hurricane Katrina almost did to the Super Bowl? … This almost makes playing in London, again, look like a good idea.
The Viking fans, like most every year, got their walking papers way too early. I should have seen it coming. My bartender friend, you know the one that looks like she just stepped off the beaches of Rio, had asked me every single time I’ve been in this winter, and maybe a bit before, if I’d seen the big scrimmage, as it always seemed to be on a game day. I always said, uh gee, I dunno, can you fill me in? I just heard it was high scoring. In actuality, I usually wasn’t even sure whether she was talking about the Packer or Viking skirmish …
And even though she was typically wearing a Minnesota Wild T-shirt, you know the pro hockey team that plays in St. Paul, for you Out Easters, said add, “OK kiddo, just sit down and have a cold one and I’ll give you the lowdown.” Much like John at the bar in Billy Joel’s Piano Man.