Week 13 @ Cowboys - 1/2
Two 10 and 1 teams, Favre vs Romo, Favre 0 – 8 at Texas Stadium, Superbowl 47 ¾, battle for NFC supremacy, home field advantage in January. Take whichever spin tickles you the most. This is a big game.
After not feeling great for the last 24 hours or so I was up at 440am for a flight to Dallas out of GB via Chicago. As if my feeling bad wasn’t enough Ben, as mentioned earlier, hadn’t been well either and Kelly had been crook since Tuesday. Who said that following the Pack around town was ever going to be easy?
Frantic about not missing my flight I was up and ready to go well before the cab arrived. Dressed for the Wisconsin winter I was all snug as a bug until I arrived in Dallas. It was 18 (-9c) in Green Bay this morning, 68 (20c) in Dallas so you can imagine, I began to melt like the proverbial snowman.
This trip was a little less planned for than I was hoping. I don’t quite know how that happened but it did. I was set to arrive in Dallas at 1155am. That happened according to plan. From there though my day was planned a little something like this. No hire car and no plans on how to get to a hotel. No hotel. No idea how far the stadium was from the airport and no tickets to the game. I did have tickets planned until I found out only yesterday they were no longer available. I had a lot to do in 5 hours if I wanted to tailgate some beforehand.
My first experience on the ground was a bit of a letdown. Having been to airports like O’Hare in Chicago, Minneapolis/St Paul and Denver International I must say I was expecting big things of Dallas Fort Worth. It wasn’t to be I’m afraid. The old adage that everything is bigger and better in Texas mislead me in this instance.
I had about an hour to wait before Don, my friend from weeks past, was set to pick me up (organised after a quick phone call to see if he was in fact still coming to the game) so I figured I’d find the shopping/restaurant area and wait for him there. That wasn’t to be either. Apart from finding a few fast food establishments lining the corridors this airport had nothing. I was kind of hoping their football team was going to provide the same sort of disappointment so I decided to look at things on that positive note.
I was picked up by Don and we headed toward the stadium to find ourselves a hotel. Now I don’t know if it was my warm southern accent, Don’s superior negotiating skills or the National Guard fatigues he hadn’t taken of yet but we managed to score a room at the Days Inn literally across the road from the stadium. Sure, it was a 16 lane freeway with fence in between more than it was a road, but that’s all we had separating us and the game. Regardless of it’s size, that was the most important thing.
We checked into our room which, like other trips, was interesting (think the Super 8 in Denver 5 weeks ago) and proceeded with the all too familiar “Let’s try to find tickets 5 hours before kick-off” routine. The only problem here though, tonight’s game was touted as being bigger than Goliath himself so we knew actually getting tickets, at any price, would be no small feat.
Ebay was no help. I thought it would be fun to “win” some tickets as they say on all of their ads. When I logged on though I realised that “winning” meant bidding and that bidding involves money. Who wants to “win” something in 6 days 4 hours and 22 seconds if it’s just the same as buying it in the end?
Anyway it was on to Craigslist, 4 ticket brokers and then the phone. All avenues, like a teenagers lunchbox, proved fruitless. We had to walk the parking lot (see my sign in the picture). A little note to anybody that ever needs to do this at some point in the future. The guys that have tickets to sell are the ones walking around with the “I need tickets” sign. Apparently that’s because they need them to sell but rest assured, they’ve always got a pocketful already.
Texas Stadium, like the airport, was a whole lot less awesome than I thought it would be. I don’t know why but for some reason I was expecting the Taj Mahal of football stadiums. In the end it was more like the Metrodome only it had an open roof. In saying that, much like my experience in Denver, this stadium meant something to me. At Mile High it was memories of a friendship past. Here it was memories of watching the likes of Aikman, Irvin and Emmitt Smith tear up their opposition.
As I’ve mentioned earlier in the piece, teams like San Francisco, New York, Washington and Dallas dominated Australian TV through the 90’s. If I’d seen one Cowboys game at Texas Stadium I must have seen about 30. That really bugged me as a Packers fan but now, in the moment, being here where the likes of those Hall of Famers played really meant a great to me as a fan of the game of football.
After 2 and a half hours or so and tickets ranging from $400 - $1000 a pop I managed to find one for $250. I fair dinkum could have kissed the guy. If he wasn’t so tall, large and scary looking at least. After some steep negotiating I managed to get him down to $230 which wasn’t easy I can tell you. Everybody else I had tried to negotiate with simply left at the first sign of conversation. Without even saying goodbye!
At that it was off to meet some friends, Chad and Dana that I had been emailing back and forth for a week or so. We enjoyed some brats (of course) some more Lienenkugels and then into the game. I‘d like to say a big thank you to Chad and Dana here if I may. Don and I both appreciated your kind hospitality. You went out of your way in making us feel as welcome as you did. You filled our bellies, made us laugh and helped us with our “ticket situation” earlier on in the day. You really helped make the day a little easier for us both.
