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Related: About this forumIce Bowl 67, by Chuck Carlson. A book review
Sports fans with a historical bentwhich is to say, sports fansoften employ shorthand to describe the landmark episodes of stadiums, arenas and playing fields: The Fifth-Down Game (Cornell vs. Dartmouth, 1940); the Mazeroski Walk-Off Homer (Pirates defeat Yankees in the World Series, 1960); the Immaculate Reception ( Franco Harriss improbable catch in an AFC divisional playoff game, 1972). And there is another, indisputably one of the legendary moments of all sports: the Ice Bowl.
For devotees of football it is unnecessary to explain that we are talking about the 1967 NFL Championship Game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers in icy northeastern Wisconsin, where a blast of Arctic air had pushed temperatures well into double digits below zero, with wind chills hitting minus 65 degrees. The game itself is of course at the center of sportswriter Chuck Carlsons Ice Bowl 67, though he also offers up context as well as interviews with participants and spectators, now thawed but still awed. Reflecting on the weather conditions that day, Dan Reeves, a Cowboy at the time and later a coach, writes in the books foreword: How did we do it? Who knows? Instinct takes over. So did competitiveness. The will to win overrides everything including frozen fields and fingers.
By game time the field was frozen solid. The players couldnt get traction. The members of the band couldnt play because their instruments were too cold. The referees abandoned their whistles for fear they might freeze to their lips, and besides, the little wooden balls inside were frozen in place. Many of the 50,861 at Green Bays Lambeau Field suffered frostbite, despite huddling under blankets and sipping from flasks. But surely none of them regrets the experience of being there. Seldom have two more accomplished teams played for an athletic championship.
The Cowboys (9-5) were Americas Team, the Packers (9-4-1) were, in Mr. Carlsons felicitous term, Americas comfort food. The game pit Texas cool against Wisconsin cold; the swashbuckling newcomer Cowboys (founded 1960) against the established royalty of the Packers (founded 1919); Dallass cerebral coach Tom Landry against Green Bays martinet Vince Lombardi. The principals on the field included a murderers row, if you will forgive the mixed-sports metaphor, of pro-football legends: Jerry Kramer. Ray Nitschke. Herb Adderley. Don Chandler. Lance Rentzel. Bob Hayes. Bob Lilly. Jethro Pugh. Not to mention quarterbacks Bart Starr and Don Meredith.
The record book shows that the Packers defeated the Cowboys, 21-17, and that Green Bays Starr completed 14 of 24 passes and threw for two touchdowns. But the game lives on well beyond the record books, not least for the moment that clinched a victory for the Packers, the rare late-game play remembered as much for the blocks (Jerry Kramer and Ken Bowman ) as for the touchdown (Mr. Starr in a starring role). The CBS camera angle was perfectit captured a touchdown made for televisionand as a result the play has become endlessly viewable for anyone who missed the game at the time and for generations of sports fans to come.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/review-sub-zero-heroes-1514569505
El Supremo
(20,365 posts)couldn't watch it. I was really bummed.
I bet Madinmaryland was still in diapers!
GusBob
(7,286 posts)Will have to add that book to my library
GusBob
(7,286 posts)They were less than kind, basically "don't waste your money on this book"
I wish I hadn't. The game (to the extent it was discussed) was done two thirds of the way through the book. There was nothing new presented. Facts were wrong -- Lombardi was sometimes a New Yorker (he was) and sometimes from New Jersey (he wasn't). It pretends that the issue of whether Jerry Kramer moved before the snap on the final play is an open question. It's not -- and I'm a huge Kramer fan. Slow motion clearly shows he jumped, although it's impossible to see at regular speed. The book is also filled (at least in the Kindle addition) with typos and other editing mistakes. And the title is redundant. There was only one Ice Bowl -- a point the book makes. Why call it Ice Bowl '67?
GusBob
(7,286 posts)Jerry Kramer is the man. His book is much better
I can't believe a published book of any merit would allows typos and errors of fact