After Breaking the Ice, Minneapolis Warms to Super Bowl Task

Art Monk didn’t fall through an ice-fishing hole, Andre Reed wasn’t crushed by a snowplow, the media bus wasn’t caught in an avalanche, not a single Hog lost any limbs and Thurman Thomas failed to lick and bond his tongue to a Hennepin Avenue lamppost on a dare by Jim Kelly.

Sorry about that last one.

Here it is, Super Sunday, Ice Station Zebra, and we have the displeasure this morning to report that the Super Bowl survived Super Bowl Week. Never mind who wins and who loses and how many field goals Scott Norwood misses today, the first Minnesota Super Bowl has already been an unmitigated disappointment.

It wasn’t a disaster.

Where were the blizzards?

Where were the stalled taxis?

Where was the hypothermia?

Where, for the sake of a jaded national press corps braced for the worst and praying for loads of it, were the easy angles?

All week long, columnists grumbled: Damn weather, it hasn’t been bad enough to rip. Clear skies. Temperatures crisp, between the mid-20s and the mid-40s. No snow, except for the drifts that have been on the ground since October and the few flakes that dusted downtown Minneapolis Friday night and Saturday afternoon.

So mild was the weather that the Twin Cities’ many and legendary ice sculptors griped right along with the scribes. “We weren’t expecting this weather,” complained one chiseler amid the dripping cherubs and melting King Boreas heads in St. Paul’s Rice Park. “It’s terrible being this warm,” claimed another. “When I go to carve it, it falls apart.”

Carving ice or carving up a host city, it was a bad week either way.

Detroit ’82 was the only other cold-weather Super Bowl and therefore the only existing point of reference. By all accounts, it was a thoroughly miserable experience, complete with sordid tales of bus breakdowns and spectators trudging miles through the snow to get to the Silverdome in Pontiac.

But Detroit didn’t help itself by letting its Lake Huron-sized inferiority complex show. The days leading up to Super Bowl XVI were times that try men’s souls, but Detroit put its worst sole forward by shifting into a defensive stance and grimacing when it should have been grinning. For some reason, Detroit thinks the rest of the world hates it--a reason that probably begins with Isiah Thomas and Bo Schembechler--and subsequently carries itself as The City With The Broad Chip On Its Shoulder.

Minneapolis ’92 would have none of that. It’s hard to hate a city whose favorite wintertime activity is poking fun at itself, that immediately disarmed planeloads of grumbling visitors with a mercury-raising self-effacing sense of humor.

No k-k-kidding, this is really a very n-n-nICE c-c-CITY read the banner headline across Tuesday morning’s Star Tribune sports section, which also features a Super Bowl XXVI logo dripping with icicles.

Hot! Hot! Hot! say the buttons on the red, yellow and blue uniforms of the ever-smiling Super Bowl Ambassadors, volunteers stationed throughout the city to answer questions, provide directions and hand out 250,000 wallet-sized hand and pocket warmers.

On Page 33 of the Minnesota Super Bowl Task Force’s visitors guidebook (official slogan: “The Great Minnesota Warm-up”), there are handy tips on how to avoid frostbite, something every Super Bowl spectator should know.

Remember:

“Mittens provide more warmth than gloves.”

“Dress in layers of light, closely woven clothes, not heavy, bulky clothes.”

“Don’t wear metal earrings in extreme cold.”

The Twin Cities’ other major newspaper, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, runs mugshots of its gossip columnists, Rick and Georgann (no last names; this is Prince’s town, you know), clad in fur hats and Eskimo parkas. It also runs daily temperature readings from around the country by way of comparison. Saturday, for instance, looked like this:

Buffalo: High 27, Low 17, Snow.

Washington, D.C.: High 45, Low 30, Clear.

Tampa (site of Super Bowl XXV): High 60, Low 48, Clear.

Pasadena (site of Super Bowl XXVII): High 85, Low 54, Clear.

Metrodome: 72, Overcast.

Inside the Metrodome, it’s always overcast.

Super Week activities have also been quintessentially Minnesotan--i.e., understated, subdued, everything in moderation. Here is where the Twins won the World Series in 1987 and their manager never left the bench to shake one player’s hand. Here is where roving bands of youths on a wild Coca-Cola jag overturned a sidewalk garbage can during that post-Series celebration--prompting a young couple to stop, stoop and put the receptacle back in its proper place.

Two years ago, the NFL staged a Super Bowl party in New Orleans that would have made Caligula blush. Sushi bars, barbecue spits, shrimp cocktails as far as the eye could see, French pastries, every kind of roasted beast. Six bands played every type of music, from jazz to rock to zydeco, and for that final, fitting, decadent touch, college students were hired to dress in historical costumes--1700s colonial, ancient Greek--and pose, motionless, as human statues for three hours.

Minnesota’s Super Bowl party featured ham sandwiches, roll-your-own fajitas, apple dumplings and hot apple cider. The usual media and NFL dignitaries were invited, but so was anybody else willing to shell out for the $14 ticket. “The NFL Experience” was the theme of the night and the night was more theme park than blowout, featuring field-goal kicking contests, pass-throwing contests and 40-yard dash contests.

You want to party in Minnesota in January, you have to find ways to keep warm.

All in all, the players had a splendid week. The Bills, especially, loved it, because compared to the frozen tundra back home, 37 degrees in Minneapolis is positively Palm Springs.

Joe Gibbs, the Washington head coach, went so far as to predict a second Super Bowl for Vikingville. “The town has been fantastic,” Gibbs said. “Everything’s been great and I think they’re going to get another Super Bowl here. We’re going to love playing in this one.”

Gibbs would say that.

Gibbs is going to win this one. The Bills don’t have the defense to keep up with Mark Rypien’s Posse, the Earnest Byner-Ricky Ervins-Gerald Riggs trifecta at tailback will keep the Redskins’ running game fresh and against the Washington front seven, Thurman Thomas’ legs have little chance of keeping up with his mouth.

Washington is going to win the winter carnival. Through teamwork and egoless devotion to the collective objective--Minnesota traits, through and through--the Redskins are going to stop the Bills today.

Stop them cold.