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The Ice Bowl - 50 years on

The Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers played one of the most infamous games in NFL history...



The Ice Bowl - 50 years on
Other Sports

The Ice Bowl - 50 years on

The Dallas Cowboys and the Green Bay Packers played one of the most infamous games in NFL history on 31st December at Lambeau Field in Wisconsin. 

The match was played for the 35th NFL Championship, and saw two future Hall of Fame coaches - Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi - square off against one another. 

The conditions plummeted to -26 degrees with a windchill factor of -44 degrees. The whistle referee Norm Schachter used to start the match stuck to his lip and ripped part of it off afterwards, meaning it wasn't used for the remainder of the game. 

The Boston Globe's Kevin Cullen joined Off the Ball to discuss the match, and speaking to Joe Molloy he said: "Anybody who is into NFL football probably knows about it and also, you have to be of a certain age. 

"If you talked to Millennials - or even people in their thirties - they would first of all find it hard to believe that they actually played the game in those conditions. I mean, the intro you just played was one thing, but some poor old guy died in the stands from exposure - it was crazy. 

"It really impacted the NFL going forward because from there on in when the Super Bowl era came about - they really have tried to go to dome stadiums or at least play in the south.

"So, it had a real impact on the game when we look back at it, but it's an iconic sporting event by any measure," he added. 

Reflecting on the freezing conditions and the lack of a whistle throughout the game, Cullen added: "You couldn't hear it. The whistle was useless at that point. So just think of that, and there's 50,000 people screaming and yelling and the only way the refs are controlling the match is screaming at the top of their lungs saying that the play is over! 

"I don't think we'll ever see something like that again."

The full discussion can be heard here:

The Ice Bowl - 50 years on

00:00:00 / 00:00:00

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