“The NFL supports the plan to play Monday night’s game at TCF Bank Stadium but is presently ensuring viability of this plan,” the Vikings said in a statement released Wednesday. “At the same time, the Vikings and the University of Minnesota are diligently working through all of the issues associated with moving a game such as tickets, parking, and operations. The organization is working to accommodate our fans’ inquiries, and we will continue to inform them on this fluid situation as soon as more information is available.”
The Vikings immediately turned their “full notice to the College of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Arena,” the team said in a declaration. Vice president for public affairs Lester Bagley told The Associated Press that the NFL has agreed to allow the game to be played at the roofless Gophers’ football stadium.
The Vikings say NFL officials are touring TCF Bank Stadium at the University of Minnesota to make sure the facility is safe for fans and that the stadium meets technical requirements for NFL games.
There are 20-inch-deep snow drifts throughout the facility, and much of it will have to be removed by workers with shovels rather than plows that might damage the stadium’s floors, said Garry Bowman, the university’s director of athletic communications.
The Vikings have agreed to pick up all preliminary expenses, including plowing, as well as all expenses involved in holding the game, said Scott Ellison, the college’s assistant athletic director for facilities. He didn’t know how much it would cost to remove the snow, but he said he believed it would be considerable. The normal sport-day budget at the arena is $250,000, he said.
Workers at the university, meanwhile, began the daunting task of clearing tons of freshly fallen snow from inside the arena, which opened in 2009 and never has staged a professional football sport. The college released a declaration asking for volunteers to help shovel snow beginning Thursday. The school will even provide the shovels if necessary.
The snow-removal plan is to have groups of 100 workers, working four-hour shifts, for 16 hours per day. Right now, most of those workers are coming from temp agencies.
Officials also have to get the building ready, including concessions, which are designed to withstand mid-November temps. Ellison said officials would have to put Plexiglass covers over concession stands to trap heat inside.
Monday night’s game will fall 29 years to the day from the last time the Vikings played outdoors in Minnesota: Dec. 20, 1981, their final sport at the since-demolished Metropolitan Arena in Bloomington, which the Metrodome replaced. The Vikings lost that game to the Kansas City Chiefs, 10-6.
It promises to be a memorable experience on a night in which long-term forecasts predict temps in the single digits or colder.
“I think they’ll love outdoor football in Minnesota. I think it’ll be a great experience for the fans,” Ellison said.
TCF Bank Stadium has a seating capacity of about 50,000 — about 13,000 fewer seats than are available at the Metrodome for football games. College spokesman Dan Wolter said lawyers also were exploring whether beer will be sold at the arena. There are no beer sales for college games.
In the Metrodome on Tuesday, work crews laid sheets of plywood on the field to keep it dry and used several hydraulic lifts as they began tearing down pieces of the tattered roof.
Inspectors from Birdair Inc., the Amherst, N.Y.-based contractor that built the roof, found that the snow and ice in roof panels that didn’t collapse was so deep, it posed a safety hazard to workers — and would have to be dealt with in a slow and thorough manner.
“We have to go this way, to be on the safe side,” Terwilliger said.
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