UPDATE JANUARY 13: Minneapolis Star Tribune front page article, etc.
Enroute to church this morning I passed within blocks, as always, the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis. It usually stands out when viewed from Interstate 94, but today it was hard to pick it out: overnight the roof collapsed from the weight of the snow from yesterday’s blizzard. The absence of a roof made it hard to see.
At church, my fellow-usher friend commented that the Dome was just expressing its feelings, let-down that today’s game had been postponed. If so, it must now be downright depressed. The game has been moved to Detroit tomorrow night. That’ll show the Grand Dame of the Twin Cities.
I don’t know how the Dome is insured against such calamities. There are often clauses which in one way or another consider “acts of God”, of which weather is one of the obvious ones.
So, why did God pick on the Dome? (It’s a fair question, because people are constantly suggesting God’s intercession, a preference or disgust for this or that; that God’ll get you, or got you, because you weren’t listening.)
Perhaps, I thought, God was cutting Bret Favre some slack, allowing him one more day to heal so that his game-starting streak could remain intact. Maybe the intent was to lobby the Minnesota legislature: you folks need to give those Vikings new digs…or maybe it was the opposite “so, you want a new stadium without a roof. See what will happen?” (As I write, Chicago and New England are having a snowball fight in their game.)
Full disclosure: I have very little investment in professional sports, interest or otherwise. Till yesterday, when the Giants were stranded in Kansas City, unable to get to Minneapolis, I didn’t even realize there was a game here. Still, pro sports is a roost-ruler in this and many other markets.
Pro-sports is a big business, that is all that it is.
The Metrodome, unsightly and elderly as it is, has been a very functional place since its completion 28 years ago, in 1982. There is an interesting history of the structure here. It was completed on time, and under budget – something unheard of even then. I took a ten year old to a game early in the first season at the Dome. I recall the night vividly: there were four home runs in the first inning. What a start.
Now it is in tatters, till stitched back together.
Those with an interest in a new stadium – or not – are already talking about how to ‘spin’ this spectacular incident earlier today. Talking points are being developed ‘as we speak’.