Maybe it was the contrast. The week before, Kansas City and Arrowhead, all those happy people 'cuein out in the parking lot (and no one 'cues like K.C. 'cues), the Chiefs fans who took an Indiana sportswriter under their wing and gave him some jovial dinner company.
The next week ...
Foxborough. Gillette. Cold, gray place; cold, gray fans that made me glad I wasn't a Colts fan rockin' that Manning jersey.
Which brings us to Minneapolis, Minn., where it's supposed to be a high of 11 degrees for the S-s-s-s-uper B-b-b-b-owl, happy news for those of us (like me) who think if Patriots fans aren't the worst, Eagles fans purportedly are. I got the Patriots experience back in 2003, following the Colts to their inevitable Gillette Stadium doom. The Eagles' experience I've only heard stories about, which means maybe they're all apocryphal and Eagles fans really aren't that nasty after all.
Although it is irrefutably true the authorities installed a holding cell in their stadium. Which suggests they're not all fine congenial folks, either.
Neither do the numerous tales that Eagles fans all but put out a contract on anyone wearing visiting Vikings purple at the NFC title game. This likely won't make the good people of Minneapolis feel any better about hosting those same fans this week, and also the Patriots fans. They don't even get the joy of watching them freeze to death in those 11-degree Minnesota winter temps, on account of the Vikings owners, the Wilfs, put a roof on that new stadium for which they squeezed the taxpayers a few years back.
No doubt Bud Grant rolled his eyes at the news, having coached the Vikes when they played outdoors, like men, instead of indoors, like pantywaists.
Roger Goodell, on the other hand, loves these new stadiums, especially the squeezing the taxpayers part. And so the Shield is coming to Minny for its big party, a reward to the Wilfs for their success in conning the citizenry with the usual new-stadium fairy tales about Creating Jobs and Boosting The Economy.
New stadiums rarely do either, of course. Neither does the Super Bowl have much sustained economic impact on the host cities, mainly because the NFL essentially gets everything for free. But it all sounds good, and so the owners and the league keep trotting it out there.
In any case, on with the show. Perhaps, if we're lucky, the two fan bases will engage in some high-spirited revelry, given their respective reputations.
After all, YouTube can always use more drunken fan fight footage.
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