MINNEAPOLIS — Vikings punter Chris Kluwe is calling the field at TCF Bank Stadium unplayable. But officials with the team and the University of Minnesota insist it will be safe for tonight’s game against the Bears.
Crews at the university have been racing to get the on-campus open-air stadium ready for the Vikings’ rare outdoor home game.
The Metrodome remains deflated due to a heavy snowstorm last weekend that tore holes in the roof that couldn’t be fixed in time.
University athletics spokesman Garry Bowman says they’re absolutely ready to go. There was no media access to coaches or players during their walkthrough yesterday, but Kluwe and some other Vikings sounded off on their Twitter accounts.
Kluwe tweets that the field is hard as concrete. In quotes distributed by the team, Vikings interim coach Leslie Frazier says conditions will be safe and players don’t need to worry.
Former Vikings defensive end Jim Marshall, a member of the legendary Purple People Eaters who played for the Vikings from 1961 to 1979, said he and teammates in those days turned freezing weather to their advantage.
“It was our 12th man on the field,” Marshall said. “When those great winds came in, we called it the winds of Odin, the Viking god of war, and it gave us spirit.
“[Former coach] Bud Grant had the philosophy that when we went on the field we didn’t need heaters and gloves, because our concentration should be on winning the football game and not on whether we were warm or not.”