I can’t resist the temptation to revisit the frosty football game in which the Seattle Seahawks skated on thin ice — almost literally — right up to the end of the game.
You know it was cold Sunday, when the temperature in Minneapolis never got up to zero degrees Fahrenheit for the entire day. So how cold was it?
It was so cold that Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman’s contact lenses started freezing on his eyeballs.
It was so cold that quarterback Russell Wilson’s voice was unable to call out the snap count as loud as he usually does.
AP photo by Nam Y. Huh
It was so cold that defensive end Michael Bennett felt like he was playing the game in Antarctica.
All true, according to John Boyle of Seahawks.com.
“The hardest part was commutating, because it was so cold your mouth kept freezing,” Wilson was quoted as saying. “But it’s no excuse; you’ve got to find a way to win, and that’s what we were able to do.”
Since this is a blog about water issues, I searched for photos that showed how the moist breath of fans, players, coaches and officials condensed in the cold air. Reuters had the same idea, and you can read about the conditions in Detroit Newsline.
I was amused by the man drinking a beer that had turned into a slushy. It looks like he is on the verge of shaking out the icy brew. (Check out the first video at right.)
If you didn’t drink fast, your drink would be frozen, as many people learned to their dismay. After all, this was the third-coldest game in NFL history. It was interesting to see that some tailgaters at the game were warming their cans of beer by the fire in order to take a drink. (Check out the second video below.)
It's so cold (-10°) at the @Vikings tailgate they have to
WARM UP their #beer to keep it
from freeezing. pic.twitter.com/QL4f1ZN0AJ
— Mike Seidel (@mikeseidel) January
10, 2016
It was so cold at game time that the Vikings’ gjallarhorn, the giant curved horn blown during pregame activities, was broken just two hours before the game. In Norse tradition, the gjallerhorn was once sounded to announce the arrival of the gods. In Minnesota, the team selected a special person to sound the horn at the beginning of each game. Some people took the breakage as an oman about the game to come. But the team did have a backup — the previous horn used up until 2009 — and it was blown by Minnesota’s injured tight end Rhett Ellison, who was sitting out the game. Perhaps the old horn was not the proper replacement after all.
The #Vikings
#Gjallarhorn
is shattered from the cold temps before today's #SEAvsMIN game.
pic.twitter.com/0MceMuekPl
— KARE 11 (@kare11) January 10,
2016
“It was so cold in downtown Minneapolis that flashers were showing women pictures of themselves.”