The Ice Bowl: December Thirty-First, Nineteen Sixty-Seven
Near Green Bay, Wisconsin
At kickoff on the last day of nineteen sixty-seven, the thermometer at Lambeau Field read thirteen degrees below zero. The heating coils buried under the field, installed specifically to prevent it from freezing, had failed overnight. The field was concrete.
The Green Bay Packers were playing the Dallas Cowboys for the NFL championship. Sixteen miles per hour of wind drove the temperature down to something between minus thirty and minus forty-eight degrees, depending on which measurement you use. Both are unfathomable.
Spectators' eyelashes froze. Trombone players in the halftime band found their instruments locked up. A fan who grabbed a metal railing with a bare hand left skin behind.
More than fifty thousand people stayed in their seats anyway. The Packers trailed by three points with sixteen seconds remaining when quarterback Bart Starr faced a third-and-goal from roughly the one-yard line. He had called two running plays and both had slipped on the frozen surface.
He kept the ball himself, without telling his blockers. Guard Jerry Kramer and center Ken Bowman drove out Dallas tackle Jethro Pugh. Starr dove across the goal line.
Green Bay won twenty-one to seventeen. The Packers went on to win Super Bowl Two. The game became known as the Ice Bowl almost immediately.
It remains the coldest game in NFL history. Every measurement of that day, the temperature, the failed heating system, the frostbitten crowd, the final sneak, has been documented by the National Weather Service, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and multiple independent accounts. Nothing about it requires embellishment.
For every Packers fan who has ever stood in this parking lot in January, the cold you feel right now is just a rehearsal.
