An idea that's not so very brrrrrr-illiant
Public response to the NFC title game's frigid weather ranged mostly between indifference and approval.
My goodness, have football fans gone brain numb? Have they forgotten that games aren't supposed to be played outdoors at night in January? Isn't it clear that places like Chicago should have stadiums with roofs?
Listen, only two activities are fit for subzero temperatures.
One is being born in the back seat of a taxi after the family heap wouldn't start. Another is being buried 6 feet under frozen ground, which is why it's called the dead of winter.
Between being born and buried, nothing except lounging on a recliner makes sense when the wind chill is minus-26.
Please, don't mention skiing, ice fishing, polar bear hunting or other goofy exercises.
Certainly don't mention NFL playoff games like the one Frosty Favre lost up in Wisiberia the other evening.
In baseball, players are the Boys of Summer. In football, they're the Men of Autumn. Winter? That's for indoor sports like basketball and whoopee.
Players aren't the issue, however. Anyone nuts enough to play football is nuts enough to play it in a meat locker.
But fans deserve better than to pay big bucks to be cool customers.
Listen, I'm not some wimp who just arrived from Florida. I'm a wimp who grew up watching the Bears play in Wrigley Field. But back in the day, seasons ended during the day in December rather than at night in January.
Still, one memory frozen in time is a Monday night game against the Vikings. Wind blasted sleet directly into our chattering teeth. We stayed until the bitter, and bitterly cold, end.
Wouldn't sit out in that kind of weather again. Received psychotherapy. Retreated to the press box. Grew up. Yes, grew soft. But also grew smart.
Long ago, cold football made me stop debating global warming and start praying for it.
The late chess champ Bobby Fischer was considered to be daffy. Yet when he recorded his most famous victory, in Iceland of all places, he wasn't daffy enough to insist the match be played outdoors.
Even Fischer understood that not even Icelanders would consider frigid sporting events to be romantic.
Now NFL playoff games at night in January are giving romance a bad name. They're as romantic as kissing a goal post and having your tongue stick.
Oh, you say, I'm missing the beauty of the Frozen Tundra, the Ice Bowl, alleged Packers and Bears weather, male fans chilling with their shirts off, women fans thrilling in bikini tops …
Well, I say, you're missing the point of shivering bones, green ice cubes flying out of nostrils, bootlegged schnapps running out early, the scantily clad suffering hypothermia, the plumbing exploding in the restroom …
(Either the john's plumbing or a guy name John's plumbing.)
Anyway, as Packers-Giants ratings indicate, January games would be all right if football were a TV-studio sport.
But fanatics are charged an arm and a leg -- limbs that freeze, fall off and roll down the aisle -- for the right to attend in person.
If football games were meant to be cold wars, Super Bowls would be played outdoors in Chicago and Green Bay.
Instead they're played in the desert, or in domes, or sometimes in both.
Which, after Sunday, makes a lot of sense.
mimrem@dailyherald.com