Partying with the Viking World Order

Sunday, and a simple parking lot turns into a pigskin Valhalla, where ordinary Minnesotans gather with the sort of kinship and anticipation that ascending souls must feel as they approach the pearly gates — but with beer.

This is tailgating with the Viking World Order, an hours-long pregame ritual laced with hierarchy, DJs, satellite dishes, swords, loyalty tattoos, occasionally spectacular cleavage and an unwavering conviction that its members are "the greatest group of fans in the NFL."

Rival teams' fans likely feel a similar passion, but as Gregory Hanson pointed out, they lack the leverage of having a team mascot who's human, enabling Vikings fans to dress up as real-life action figures.

"I mean, what're you going to do for the Dolphins? Go, 'Ee-ah, ee-ah, ee-ah'?" Hanson said, cracking himself up. Emptying a beer into an epic stein, he started listing other mascot challenges: Colts. Browns. Falcons. Saints? Sheesh.

As for the NFL team based in Wisconsin, no Vikes fan sweats how to look tougher than a worker in a canned-meats factory.

Least of all Hanson of St. Cloud, known in the Viking World Order as Sir Odin. He figures he has about $8,000 sunk into creating his persona, with armor, a horned helmet, boots, chain mail, swords, gloves and so much more. Garage sales help; one cloak is a yak rug he snagged for $25.

He suits up as soon as he and his wife, Teri Hanson, known as Lady Freyja, get their customized purple Jeep Cherokee perfectly positioned over stanchions that support six huge flags of the Vikings, Norway and the United States.

In full Norse regalia, Sir Odin attracts a crowd, especially last fall in London, where he and many of the Viking World Order traveled to see their team play the Pittsburgh Steelers. Hanson recalled a bystander marveling at how women converged on him like lye on lutefisk.

"Only in the outfit, dude," Hanson told the man. "Otherwise I'm just a chubby old guy."

Taking a sip from his stein, he added: "Or as someone once adroitly put it: 'You're so much less without the armor.' "

Bleeding purple

The Viking World Order is always ready for some football.

A gjallarhorn's noble moan (available as a ringtone!) reverberates over the parking lot across the street from Mariucci Arena in Minneapolis, where several purple vans, cars and a dune buggy dot the asphalt. It's the first preseason game, and the first tailgating at the University of Minnesota, where the team is playing until their new downtown stadium is completed in 2016.

Purple Vikings jerseys tout faves from Winfield to Bridgewater, worn by people with purple hair or nail polish. Camouflage pants in shades of purple blend together — which, in a weird way, makes sense, right?

The Viking World Order was founded in 1997 by Syd Davy, a superfan from Winnepeg, Manitoba, perhaps best known as the guy who caught Randy Moss whenever he'd leap into the stands after a touchdown. As the stadium issue heated up, Davy began "knighting" other fans into the Order to build support.

Today, more than 100 men are in divisions named Special Ops, Homeland Security, Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines — because the stadium issue required an army. More than 80 women make up the Valkyrie Division.

Becoming a member isn't just a matter of showing up.

The group's Facebook page spells it out: Viking World Order wannabes must gain support from at least 15 of 28 Generals via a biography documenting "that you are a die-hard Viking fan, that your loyalty to this team is for life, that you will represent the VWO and the Minnesota Vikings with Honor, Integrity and Respect and that you bleed purple."

Their nomination then goes to Davy (or Sir Syd) for final approval.

Oh, and you need to get a tattoo. (In case you thought "for life" was a casual phrase.)

This is where you begin to grasp that these fans are not like other fans. Take Dave Gunderson, or Sir Gunnar.

Each season, Gunderson, of Brooklyn Park, has 10 outfits he designs and makes himself, each with a different meaning "because every game is a different battle," he explained. "If we lose the NFC Championship Game, I never wear what I was wearing again."

He said it plain: "We're fanatics about our team."

He remembers going to his first Minnesota Vikings game in 1969 at age 6. "We were playing the Cleveland Browns, and I think the score was 51-3," he said. (And there it is in the team archives: 51-3.)

Gunderson already is planning his outfit for the first game in the new stadium. "I'll have a new breastplate, new headgear, new kilt, new boots."

On this day, though, he just pulled on a Vikings jersey. This is a preseason game. "Doesn't mean anything."

Tradition takes a knee

In the corner of the lot nearest the stadium, a wiry man adjusts a satellite dish a micron at a time as a woman stares at a huge TV that fills the back hatch of a van, shouting, "Fifty-four percent … 68 percent … 64 … 73 percent … 74 … 75 percent, wooo!" as an image of NFL analysts flickers onto the screen.

For Larry and Lynn Spooner of Plymouth, their biggest job of the day is done. Which, this year, is weird.

On any given tailgating Sunday, Sir Spooner would be tending almost a dozen grills, slow-cooking 80 or more pounds of meat and bones.

But not this year.

Nor next year, either.

The U's tailgating regulations ban open fires "fueled by charcoal, wood or other combustible materials," which relegated several tailgaters to grilling hot dogs over propane camping stoves.

Gas grills with canisters up to 20 pounds are allowed. But, well, it's gas. The task of lugging Webers, troughs, sawed-off barrels and bags and bags and bags of charcoal through the predawn darkness is but a fond memory.

On this day, most folks managed with snacks and sandwiches.

Spooner acknowledged feeling a measure of leisure. Not that he let things slide on other fronts, having made five trips over several weeks to the tailgating lot to do reconnaissance, scouting out top locations, optimal satellite dish placement and the best spot for the DJ's truck. On game day, he arrived at 4 a.m., ensuring that his vehicle would be the first in when the gates opened at 1 p.m.

"This is a new era, a new beginning," he said, with the earnest manner of an especially convivial spaniel. For many, Spooner was the face of Vikings fans as the Legislature debated the stadium issue, making sure that people realized how important the Vikings are to Minnesota. And to him.

"If not for Vikings football, my dad wouldn't have become my best friend," he said solemnly, sharing how an estrangement after his parents' divorce long ago slowly began to heal as he and his dad began watching games together.

These days, Spooner views the game as it beams from his van. "We're here for people who don't have tickets," he said. "That's what we do. We're all about creating a wholesome experience for as many people as possible."

It's a family affair

No doubt, some groups arrive on the asphalt primed to pound as much beer as possible before kickoff.

But not these folks. There are kids everywhere, dancing to the DJ, tossing footballs, playing beanbag toss and generally just being kids with ready access to coolers of pop and bowls of snacks. The bouncy castle by the stadium is redundant.

Kids are why Teri Hanson attaches wide lapels of fur to the neckline of her dress. She likes to hand out Mardi Gras beads, "not to diss the guys who sell the beads inside, but I can buy them in bulk for about 12 cents a piece," she said. "It's my little tidbit toward building memories for the kids."

Here's the deal, though: The corset that Hanson wears as Lady Freyja creates a landscape that rivals most fjords. But whenever she's around kids, she arranges her furs to cover her cleavage. "It keeps me PG-friendly," she said, laughing.

Her outfit is built around her wedding gown, over which she's layered furs, floaty gold fabric and tinkling bangles. "By the opening game, it'll be the hundredth time of wearing my wedding dress."

The Viking World Order is like a family, she said — which is what almost everyone brings up. Gary Hanson took the family image one step further, which also explained why people who make lame jokes about "Vi-queens" have no business on this lot.

"Being a fan of this team is like having children," he said, and at this, his eyes softened beneath the brim of his helmet. "You love them, and you expect great things of them. And you're disappointed when they don't do well, but you don't throw them out."

And then the eyes grew as cold as Oslo: "So I don't think much of fair-weather fans."

Kim Ode • 612-673-7185