Ice bowl

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Ice bowl
1 2 3 4th total
Green Bay Packers 7th 7th 0 7th 21st
Dallas Cowboys 0 10 0 7th 17th
date December 31, 1967
Stadion Lambeau Field
city Green Bay , Wisconsin
favourite Packers at 6.5
Referee Norm Schachter
Number of visitors 50,861
Television broadcast
Network NFL on CBS
Commentators Ray Scott , Jack Buck and Frank Gifford

Ice Bowl is the name for the 1967 discharged NFL championship game between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys , which took place at -25 degrees Celsius.

prehistory

The game was played on December 31, 1967 at Green Bay's stadium , Lambeau Field , between the Green Bay Packers under head coach Vince Lombardi and quarterback Bart Starr and the Dallas Cowboys under head coach Tom Landry and quarterback Don Meredith carried out. The winner of the game qualified for the AFL-NFL World Championship Game . That game was later renamed Super Bowl II .

Before the game, it had snowed heavily in Green Bay. The open stadium was provided with an Astro Turf and underfloor heating . This made sure that the snow thawed. Due to a severe cold snap, the condensation water froze into a solid sheet of ice distributed over the entire field. In the NFL up to this point, a game had never been canceled due to adverse weather conditions. The game was therefore kicked off at −25 degrees Celsius.

According to the National Weather Service, it was the coldest December 31st ever recorded in Green Bay since official weather stations were introduced.

game

The Packers were favorites for the win. As a team from Texas, the Cowboys did n't seem used to such adverse conditions. The Packers were used to the cold. Both teams, however, made problems with the smooth surface, which increased the error rate.

The course of the game initially proved the Packers fans right. Two passes from Starr to wide receiver Boyd Dowler ensured a quick 14-0 lead. Then the game overturned. First a fumble from Starr was carried by the Cowboys defensive end George Andrie into the Packers end zone , then the Packers Safety Willie Wood dropped the ball after a pun return, which brought the Cowboys back into possession. The Cowboys' kicker , Danny Villanueva , scored the 14:10 halftime score. In the fourth quarter of the game, the Cowboys' running back Dan Reeves managed a 50 yard pass to wide receiver Lance Rentzel in a halfback option move that resulted in a 17:14 touchdown for his team. The game had turned. Five minutes before the end of the game, Bart Starr started well in his own half. From there he managed to get to the end zone of the cowboys with short passes. One yard before the end zone was initially the end of the line. 16 seconds before the end, Starr took a break and to everyone's surprise, the Packers did not attempt a field goal in the extra time to save, but sent Starr with his offense again on the field. It was now expected that Starr would try to get into the end zone with a pass to a wide receiver, but instead he ran into the end zone as a blocker with his center Ken Bowman and his guard Jerry Kramer . It was 9:17 pm for the Packers. They had won the game under the most adverse conditions.

Consequences

Numerous players got frostbite during the game or became ill after the game. The halftime show was canceled, the musical instruments of the members of the marching band were frozen and the mouthpieces were stuck to the lips of the musicians. Seven musicians were taken to hospitals with injuries. The referees' whistles were also affected and stuck to the referee's lips.

The Packers won the fifth NFL championship in seven years with the Ice Bowl and moved into Super Bowl II . They won this 33:14 against the Oakland Raiders .

Game cancellations are virtually unknown in the NFL even today. The game is played in almost any weather.

literature

  • Jens Plassmann: NFL - American Football. The game, the stars, the stories (= Rororo 9445 rororo Sport ). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-499-19445-7 .
  • Jürgen Kalwa: Fascination American Football. Copress Sport, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-7679-0462-4 .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Ice Bowl: December 31, 1967 . National Weather Service website , Green Bay Weather Forecast Office. Retrieved December 23, 2010.