ARLINGTON, Texas — The Ice Bowl cometh to the Super Bowl.
Cars and trucks skidding off highways, or frozen in place on ice-slicked inclines that had not been salted. Dallas-Fort Worth Airport closed. Packers and Steelers freezing inside an empty Cowboys Stadium on Media Day. A howling wind accompanying media members to the bus that waited to take them back to their hotel.
OK, is everybody ready now for the 2014 New York Super Bowl?
It can rain on Super Bowl game day in Miami. Ask Peyton Manning. It can be frigid in Jacksonville. Ask me. Barring a game day blizzard, or ice storm akin to the one that gripped this city with both hands yesterday, there is no way our 2014 New York Super Bowl can be worse than this.
Packers cornerback Charles Woodson was asked if Dallas felt like Green Bay.
“Way too much,” Woodson said. “Way too much. I thought I was going to get the vacation feeling out here today, but it didn’t happen.”
What, Woodson care?
“I am in the Super Bowl, I could care less,” he said. “I am cold, I am shaking up here right now, but I am in the Super Bowl, so that trumps everything.”
Not for everyone.
“I want it to leave,” Packers receiver James Jones said. “ I don’t want it to be here. It’s not that cold, I mean there is a little snow on the ground, but we’re from Green Bay, we can deal with it. It was crazy when we were driving up here and they were putting sand on the roads. I am like, ‘What are you guys doing putting sand on the ground?’ You guys are going to get us stuck.”
“I think we realize that 100 million people in this country have been affected by this weather today … This covers 32 states,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. “This is an inordinate weather event for this area.”
Temperatures are expected to rise into the 40s by Sunday night. Jones can simply close the roof on his breathtaking stadium. New Meadowlands Stadium offers no such option.
But we know how to handle these kinds of emergencies. We have Broadway. We have the best restaurants. We have Fifth Avenue. Brrrrrrring on our New York Super Bowl.
