Out of the Dome and Into the Snow...

Living in Minnesota, people may not always know where we are in the USA, but as of last week, they know Minneapolis as being the home of the collapsed dome stadium.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxuxNLf87_Y

Believe it or not, once upon a time, The Minnesota Vikings played American Football at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington-a suburb south of Minneapolis. Today, the Mall of America sits on the former site of "The Met".

Since 1982, the Minnesota Vikings have called the Metrodome home. It's a sterile, unappealing white mushroom in downtown Minneapolis. When it's full of 65,000 purple-clad, intoxicated fans, it is one of the loudest stadiums in the NFL, but it's a different experience than what I experienced growing up and going to games at the Met. It was an era where the bitterly cold conditions meant that you dressed for the cold-fashion be damned. (The snowmobilie suit worked the best)

I found the above clip which does a nice job of showing how football used to be here in Minneapolis for the Vikings from 1961-81.

Tonight's Vikings-Bears game will be outside at the University of Minnesota's new TCF Stadium(Also called "The Bank" here in the Twin Cities)http://stadium.gophersports.com/ Already, there has been a lot of whining about playing outside by the players. The temperatures should be well into the single-digits Farenheit, about -12 Celsius at kickoff time. Oh yeah, we are in the midst of another snowstorm which stands to drop 8 more inches of the fluffy white stuff on Minneapolis-this on the heels of last weeks 18 inch (43 cm)

snowfall. This clip shows the job of removing all of this snow from the stadium.... http://www.minnpost.com/minnclips/2010/12/20/24375/timelapse_of_tcf_bank_stadium_snow_removal

My favorite Met Stadium memory was my brother Bill and I watching with thermometer just above zero Farenheit, as the Vikings beat the Los Angeles (now St. Louis) Rams for the NFC title in 1976. The ended up losing to the Oakland Raiders in that Super Bowl...the last time the men in purple have been the Super Bowl.

Tonight's game with the woeful Vikings(Huge disappointment after the team made it to the NFC title game last year before losing to eventual Super Bowl Champs, the New Orleans Saints) and the Chicago Bears will be a throwback to a bygone era. I know I have been feeling very nostalgic. For younger fans, this game will show younger fans how the game was meant to be played-outdoors, conditions be damned.

Rugby Making Better Fathers

On a very snowy Saturday here in Minneapolis, I had a little time before trying to evacuate the foot of drifting snow on my driveway. While catching up on some rugby news, I followed this link from a blogger's guest writer, who wrote about how rugby gave him a lot of practical application to be a better father. (By the way, I think the applications work well for mom's too) Here is the link for the article: http://artofmanliness.com/2010/12/09/5-lessons-rugby-taught-me-about-fatherhood/ .

My kids were older when I started to play rugby. My son was 18, my daughter was 15. My parenting was formed a lot of what NOT to do from my parent's divorce and also lessons I learned from wrestling, American Football and my maternal grandfather-a man who had a great deal of impact in my life when I did not get to see my own father on a regular basis. That said, I think the author of the above article makes some very valid comparisons on how rugby lessons learned are valid ones for anybody who calls themselves "Dad".

Got My RWC Tickets for USA-Italy!

Knowing that the folks in charge of selling tickets for the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand were going to release more tickets today for purchase, I just had to try to get tickets to see a USA Eagles Match.

I already had purchased tickets for Australia-Russia to be played in Christchurch on 10/1, so I had my eyes on either Australia-USA in Wellington, or USA-Italy in Nelson. The few tickets left for the match against the Wallabies were just a bit more expensive than I wanted to spend, whereas there were some General Admission tickets left for the Italy game, so I just pulled the trigger and bought two tickets for the match to be played on Tuesday, September 27th at Trafalgar Park.

My wife is looking forward to the trip. Now I really have to start saving money and planning in earnest..but like Romania from this past weekend, I just punched my ticket for RWC 2011.

Last Ticket for RWC 2011: Uruguay, or Romania?

Like the proverbial Golden Ticket from Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, there is one last ticket left for the Rugby World Cup to be held in New Zealand next year.

It will all come down to Romania or Uruguay to figure out who will join the 19 other teams in New Zealand. The winner of this playoff will be in the same group as England, Argentina, Scotland and The Republic of Georgia.

A couple of weeks ago, they played out a tense, 20-20 draw in sunny Montevideo(highlights above). This means that today's match in Bucharest will amount to a winner-take-all affair. Both teams have had to play a lot of rugby to get to this point-particularly the Romanians, who at first did not look like they would be able to get out of qualifying out of Europe, but qualify they did, and then they beat Tunisia to have a shot at Uruguay, who dispatched Kazakhstan to get to this point.

Romania has been to every Rugby World Cup since 1987.  They are bigger and more physical than Uruguay, and also have more players playing professionally in Europe-Uruguay only has one, all of the rest of the Teros play on clubs in Argentina. Like Georgia, the Romanians play is dominated by their forwards. Uruguay is going to have to depend on pace and kicking to have a shot at upsetting Romania today. The Romanians probably were hoping for poor weather conditions that would favor their big pack, but the forecast for today is for  12 degrees Celsius, or 54 degrees with partly cloudy skies and minimal wind at kickoff time.

Romania has to be the favorite, but you have to admire the plucky Uruguayans. Can their rugby team shock the rugby world like Diego Forlan and his Uruguayan team mates did at this past summer's FIFA World Cup in South Africa? Much to the shock of everyone, Uruguay won it's group, then made it to the semi-finals-the ONLY South American team to make it to the final four (Much to the chagrin of one Diego Maradona) Romania had plenty of chances to put the Teros away in Montevideo, but Uruguay was able to hang on for the draw. Will Uruguay make the Romanian's pay for a lack of killer instinct? A final, Golden Ticket awaits the winner that will allow them join the party at Rugby World Cup 2011 in New Zealand.

England v Australia Ashton try

Of the November Internationals played so far, Chris Ashton's try against the Wallabies was the most impressive. Great work by England stealing the ball when it looked like Australia was going to score...then England, instead of kicking the ball deep out of harm's way, showed a swashbuckling flair getting the ball out wide to Chris Ashton, who showed blistering pace in outrunning several Wallabies...simply great stuff.

6 Nações B - Portugal v Georgia (2009-2010) Steve Adams

Rugby World Cup 2011: New Zealand or Bust!

A couple of days ago, I went onto the Rugby World Cup 2011 web site http://tickets.rugbyworldcup.com/to check into buying match tickets. I missed the phase II of ticket purchases, as I was hoping to get some tickets for some USA Eagle games in New Zealand.  I totally spaced out on when the second phase was going to stop. That was the bad news.

The good news was that the World Cup organizers opened up some tickets for matches in earthquake-hit Christchurch. Not having much money to work with at the moment, I bought tickets for the October 1st match between the Wallabies and Russia. 

It's not a sure thing that I will be able to A-get the time off from work, or B-save enough money for my wife and I to afford to fly to New Zealand and have a good time while we are there. That said, I felt that if I at least got a match ticket, that would at least got the process rolling. It's not different from Rugby World Cup 2007 in France. I bought my tickets for USA-Tonga, Tonga-Samoa and Argentina-Namibia even before I had the time off from work or plane tickets for me and my family. In the end, it worked. I saw some matches, and my family and I had a great time in France.

I am hoping that there will be some unsold tickets for the USA matches late in September for matches against Australia in Wellington, and against Italy in Nelson.  

They say that the trip of a thousand miles starts with the first step.  For me and my wife, this purchase of our tickets for Australia-Russia was the first step of a trip that will be several thousand miles.