Good afternoon or early evening from inside the beautiful University of Phoenix Stadium, where the roof is sadly closed and the Vikings and Cardinals are preparing to drop the puck in a little more than two hours.
Thank goodness, the good folks at the Star Tribune got me a press box seat next to Judd, Chip and Souhan. I think it was 1999, and the Florida Panthers were playing the Coyotes a night or two after the Fiesta Bowl. FSU was playing Tennessee for the national championship, so my old newspaper drafted me at the last second to do the Tennessee sidebar and notebook from the game.
But I was like the sixth reporter from the Sun-Sentinel, so I got the seat in the auxiliary press box on the roof. When the stadium cleared out, it was like 40 degrees out and I literally was writing with frozen finger tips. By the end of that long Panthers road trip, I got walking pneumonia.
Another funny story (at least now): Al Gore was at the game, so afterward, they shut down the lone elevator to the press box. Just picture a hundred out of shape sportswriters huffing and puffing up the stairs.
I remember I wrote a Peerless Price sidebar if I'm not mistaken.
In my Vikings' story tomorrow, I plan to use every hockey cliche imaginable. Brett Favre lit the lamp. Jared Allen stood on his head. Adrian Peterson and Bernard Berrian SPED through the slot.
During the lockout, I covered the Heat, Dolphins and Marlins. During one game up in Toronto, I used lines like "Shaq lit the lamp" and "Dwyane Wade stood on his head."
Strangely, I never wrote another Heat game story after that one.
