The Dallas Cowboys’ victory over the Detroit Lions this past Sunday was the dream result for every nostalgic sportswriter in America.
For the first time in 47 years, the Cowboys will make a postseason return to Green Bay to take on the Packers in a rematch of the 1967 NFL Championhip game, a contest which has gone down in the annals of NFL history, simply known as the Ice Bowl.
Thankfully, temperatures are expected to be a good deal milder for this Sunday’s encounter, but nonetheless we can expect roughly 47,000 mentions of the Ice Bowl in the run-up to and during the broadcast of this weekend’s marquee NFC match-up, and justifiably so.
At a time when the NFL was still second to baseball in the American conscience, it was games like this one, and the following year’s Super Bowl victory by Joe Namath’s New York Jets, that helped football begin its rise into the dominant sports juggernaut it is today.
The Packers, led by legendary coach Vince Lombardi, were the pre-eminent force in the sport having won four of the previous six NFL titles, while on the opposing sideline stood a Cowboys team led by another future Hall of Fame coach in Tom Landry that had been beaten by the Packers the year before but was beginning its ascent to becoming ‘America’s Team’.
But, more than the match-up of the league’s top two teams, it was the remarkable conditions in which they battled which elevated that New Year’s Eve occasion.
A brutal cold front swept through Wisconsin during the night, sending temperatures plummeting to well below zero. That’s zero fahrenheit. By game time, the mercury on Lambeau Field dropped to -13° F, or -25° C, and that’s before accounting for wind chill, which brought it down to -48°F, or -44°C.
Dallas defensive tackle Bob Lilly recalled how, that morning, team-mate George Andrie clued him in to what lay ahead, later telling the Dallas Morning News: ‘I looked out the window and I couldn’t believe how sunny and clear it was. Then George came in the room. He didn’t say anything about the temperature outside. He simply got a glass of water, pulled back the curtain and threw the water on the window. The water froze before it ran down to the window sill. And it was 70 degrees in that room.’
While the teams had no choice but no show up, the hardy Wisconsin public were under no such obligation, yet a crowd of 50,000 braved the freezing conditions, many wrapped up in sleeping bags or whatever other heavy outer garments they could lay their hands on. Sideline reporter Frank Gifford neatly described the scene for television viewers when he said: ‘I think I’ll take a bite of coffee.’
David Maraniss, a journalist, ‘live tweeted’ the Ice Bowl last year and this snippet on the clothes the fans wore says it all. Check out the full list of fantastic tweets on Storify here.
https://twitter.com/davidmaraniss/status/419489109892009984
https://twitter.com/davidmaraniss/status/419489313995235328
https://twitter.com/davidmaraniss/status/419489605721677825
Worse than the cold, though, was the condition of the field. The Lambeau heating system had failed, and when groundstaff removed the tarpaulin the field was rock hard and covered with ice. The marching band had to abandon their plans after instruments seized up and the brass section had their lips ripped off by their mouthpieces, while the referees had to dispense with their whistles when head ref Norm Schachter suffered a similar fate, officiating the game with his mouth a frozen, bloody mess.
Then the game began. Lambeau continues to be nicknamed the frozen tundra but it never merited the moniker more than on this day, with what little footage that exists of the game shows players crashing into the turf (hard as ‘a marbletop’, said Packers QB Bart Starr) in bone-crunching fashion and a haze of breath rising from every collision. Several players suffered serious frostbite in their hands and feet.
Green Bay raced out to a 14-0 first-half lead, fulfilling predictions that their greater familiarity with the cold would be key. But these Cowboys were tough in their own right, and reeled off 17 unanswered points to take a three-point lead with just under five minutes remaining.
The 68 yards Green Bay needed to win the game would be manageable under normal circumstances, but the teams had combined for less than 350 throughout the game and the Packers had accomplished little offensively against Landry’s vaunted ‘Doomsday’ defence.
But Hall of Fame quarterback Starr began driving the Packers methodically down the field, finally nearing the Dallas line as the seconds ticked away. With temperatures now at least 20 degrees cooler than at kick-off, players were struggling to keep their footing and a pair of goalline runs were stopped.
With just 16 seconds remaining, Starr called Green Bay’s final timeout and jogged to the sideline for what has become one of the most celebrated coaching decisions in NFL history. Down three, a field goal would send the game to overtime, but Starr wanted to call another run play. Knowing failure would mean defeat, Lombardi acquiesced, telling Starr to ‘Run it and let’s get the hell out of here.’
The play, known as Wedge 31, was supposed to see Starr hand the ball off but, fearful of another slip, the veteran quarterback kept the ball and pushed his way over the line to win the game. Lombardi later explained the risky call by claiming he didn’t want to put the crowd through any more misery.
‘I didn’t figure those fans in the stands wanted to sit through a sudden death,’ he said. ‘You can’t say I’m without compassion, though I’ve been accused of it.’
