The Ice Bowl--plus 40

If you watched the NFL playoff game from Green Bay last Saturday afternoon, you saw a winter wonderland, as the Packers defeated Seattle at Lambeau Field with snowflakes dancing all around.

Because the New York Giants upset the Dallas Cowboys in the other NFC semifinal game, the NFC championship game will be played at Green Bay this Sunday evening. Snow is not in the forecast, but cold weather is: Green Bay's forecast high for Sunday is +8F (-13C).

Long-time (read: older) football fans remember another championship game played in Green Bay, 40 years ago, when it was even colder. The gametime temperature: -13F (-25C).

I recently did an interview with a couple who went to that game, and they told their story. This feature appeared in our paper a few weeks ago, and I thought it might be interesting to read now, since they are about to play another championship game in the Lambeau Field icebox.

Hope you enjoy it ...

CRYSTAL FALLS—If everyone who claims they attended “the Ice Bowl” really was there, Green Bay’s Lambeau Field would have held several hundred thousand spectators on Dec. 31, 1967.

    Instead, the National Football League’s record book says only 50,861 spectators were there in person, enduring 13 degree below zero weather to watch the Packers defeat the Dallas Cowboys 21-17 in the NFL’s 1967 championship game.

    Two of them were Dick and Janet Hendrickson of Crystal Falls. Forty years later, they shared vivid memories of the unforgettable game, some Cowboys fans who weren’t ready for the subzero weather—and how they almost didn’t get there themselves.

    The only souvenirs they still have of the mythic battle on the frozen gridiron: a tattered olive green blanket and a wine flask.

    The game is most remembered for the weather: The temperature at kickoff was 13 below, and it never got any warmer.

    DURING THE 1967 SEASON, the Packers compiled a 9-4-1 record, winning their division, and defeated the Los Angeles Rams 28-7 in Milwaukee to win the Western Conference championship.

    That meant they would play the Eastern Conference champs, the Dallas Cowboys, in a rematch of their 1966 title game. That one was played in Dallas, and the Packers won 34-27 after a goal-line stand in the final minutes. Green Bay had also won the 1965 championship, so the Packers were attempting to win an unprecedented third straight NFL title.

    The Hendricksons, who were in their early 30s then, occasionally got to see a Packer game. As the weatherman forecast a frigid Sunday in Green Bay, they got an unexpected chance to see the big game.

    IT CAME FROM DALE and Nancy Valine, who operated the Bright Spot restaurant, near where Lortie’s plumbing shop is today.

    “He asked us if we wanted to go,” said Janet. “Whoever had the tickets wasn’t going to go and sit in that cold weather—they weren’t as brain-damaged as we were.

    “So Dale asked us if we wanted to take advantage of it.”

    Packer tickets weren’t as hard to obtain then as they are now, she said. “But that one—we said, ‘Why not?’” The Hendricksons and the Valines agreed to go down to the big game together after arranging for someone to watch the Hendricksons’ three kids.

    “Dick’s parents and my mother thought we were absolutely nuts,” she recalled. “But they were all willing to take care of the kids.”

    The big day arrived with subzero weather gripping Iron County and expanding into Wisconsin. The Hendricksons picked up the Valines that morning and started south on U.S. 2-141. But they didn’t get far.

    “WE GOT DOWN TO the Brule River Hill,” remembered Dick, “just before the Brule River. And then the rear end started to howl like crazy! I told everybody, We’ve got to turn around and go back and see if we could pick up another car—this isn’t going to make it down there.

    “I told Dale [Valine], You’re going to have to try your car.”

    Neither family had a garage. They went in back of the restaurant, where the Valine car was parked. Dick said Dale got behind the wheel and turned the key. “His wouldn’t even turn over!” Their hopes of seeing the big game were dwindling rapidly.

    Fortunately, there was a third option. Dick had a four-door 1959 Chevy (“the old clunker,” as Janet called it) that he drove back and forth to the Republic Mine, where he worked. “So I tried it, and sure enough, it went. No problem.

    “The only thing wrong with that, the heater wasn’t as good as the other was. We didn’t care as long as long as we got out of town.”

    Since they had lost so much time due to the car problems, the four Packer Backers drove all the way to Lambeau Field without stopping for a meal or a motel room.

    “This is how naïve we were,” said Janet. “To think we’d even find a motel at a championship game. But we didn’t have any choice. If we didn’t find a room, we were just going to come back.”

    BESIDES THE SUBZERO cold, spectators and players also had to deal with wind out of the north. “I still feel the temperature was 17 below,” said Janet, “and the wind chill factor was worse than that. And you could see the steam—everybody’s breath was just rising.”

    Forty years ago, Lambeau Field didn’t have the ring of luxury boxes it has today, so fans were more exposed to the elements than now. Also, part of the north end of the field was open—the grandstand didn’t go all the way around—and that’s the direction from which the arctic wind was gusting.

    “I think we drank a lot of coffee—Dick went down to get a lot of coffee,” Janet remembered. “Beer just didn’t taste good that day.”

    The Hendricksons and Valines were seated on the 20-yard line at the north end of the field, near a pair of Cowboy fans. Janet noticed that they weren’t dressed for the occasion.

    “She had street clothes and a little poplin jacket on. That’s all she had.” The man wore a leather jacket. They were seated among the Packer faithful who know how to dress for subzero weather.

    “WE WERE DRESSED TO the nines for cold weather.” Her brother-in-law had served in the Air Force and was stationed in Alaska; his heavy parka, with a fur-lined hood, had been passed down, and that was what she was wearing. If she turned her head quickly to see something, the hood would get in the way. Her outfit included socks, boots and multi layers of long underwear.

    “I had my hunting clothes on, I’ll tell you that,” said Dick. “A hood over the top, of course, and my insulated boots. I think I even had my wool pants that time—my hunting clothes. We both had choppers on our hands.”

    He stayed warm enough. As for Janet, only her knees got cold. Both had newspapers that they put their feet on—the papers added more insulation from the frozen concrete bleachers.

    Nearby, the two Cowboys fans weren’t dressed for the occasion. “I felt sorry for some of those people as I looked around,” Janet said. “But then I thought, Dumber than a box of rocks.”

    “They had a wine flask,” Dick recalled. “I think they must have emptied it. She was pretty well looped.” As the game went on and the cold weather took its toll through her thin clothes, she started freezing. “I felt sorry for her.”

    In the end, she had to be helped out of the stands. “They passed her right on down like this,” Janet said, holding her hands over her head. “Seeing some human body being passed down, like it was a corpse. But the fellow with her couldn’t help her walk. I think she was just passed out—totally out of it.”

    They left behind their wine flask and the olive green blanket. Janet claimed them and took them along after the game.

    THE LONGEST PART OF the game, she said, was halftime—the marching band that was supposed to perform couldn’t because their instruments froze up. Fans could only sit in the subzero cold and wait for the players to return and action to resume.

    It was a thrilling game. The Packers led 14-10 at halftime, but the Cowboys scored on a halfback option play early in the fourth quarter to take a 17-14 lead. The Packers drove into scoring range but missed a field goal. They got the ball back with 4:54 left to play, 68 yards from the Dallas end zone.

    You know the rest of the story—of how the Packers drove downfield and, with no time-outs and just 16 seconds left, quarterback Bart Starr took the snap on third and goal at the 1 and followed his blockers across the goal line. “A really, really great game,” said Dick.

    The fate of the woman from Texas remains a mystery to this day. The brutal weather conditions took a toll on many. Players and spectators alike suffered from frostbite after the game. “They had ambulances taking people away.” Many cars couldn’t restart after the game, so the tow trucks were kept busy, too.

    BUT IN THE END, none of the Crystal Falls contingent got too cold. The 1959 Chevy “clunker” started again, and the group’s first post-game priority was finding a motel. Several places had no vacancies, but then they found a place with cancellations. “The room that we wound up in was the bridal suite!” Janet laughed.

    That night, she realized just how cold it was. It was New Year’s Eve, and everyone went out to celebrate the end of 1967 and the Packers’ victory. As usual in that era, Janet said, the women were dressed in “high heels and nylons and whatever.”

    “I told Dick, ‘This is 18 times colder than it was at the game.’ But do you think that was going to keep us in the motel?”

    The next day—New Year’s morning—they were at a Big Boy restaurant when Packer linebacker Ray Nitschke came in. “I had to sneak over and get an autographed picture. He was married to a girl from Bruce’s Crossing, and I had gone to school with her brother, Bruce Forchette. We were always fans of his.

    “Our son, Dale, took that picture to school. ‘Did your dad get that picture for you?’ ‘No, my mom did!’”

    THE PACKERS’ THIRD straight NFL title marked the end of an era. After they defeated Oakland two weeks later in the second Super Bowl (played in sunny Miami), Vince Lombardi stepped down as head coach, and Green Bay would not return to the NFL limelight until the 1990s.

    It was also the last time an NFL championship game was considered more important than the Super Bowl. The American Football League’s New York Jets and Joe Namath changed that one year later.

    As for the Hendricksons, their sons still may have the pictures and other mementos. Others, such as the ticket stubs, were never kept. But they did keep the empty wine flask and the blanket left behind by the Texans. Today, the wine flask is … somewhere. The blanket is still in their home.

    “We never knew,” Janet said, “that 40 years from now, this was going to be the most famous football game ever played!”