It’s going to be cold on Sunday for the Seattle Seahawks playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings at TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
Really cold.
The updated forecast on Tuesday for Minneapolis on Sunday calls for a high temperature of zero, a low of minus 11 and a wind chill of minus 25.
The forecast high of zero degrees would make it the coldest home playoff game in Minnesota team history, the coldest game in the Seahawks’ 40-year history and among the frostiest in NFL history.
There have been only nine games in league history where the high temperature during the game never got above zero.
The Vikings’ coldest playoff game at old Metropolitan Stadium was 9 degrees in 1970 against Chicago. The Vikings’ coldest game, minus 2 against Chicago in 1972, was the sixth most frigid in NFL history.
The Seahawks say the coldest game they’ve ever played was 16 degrees on Dec. 3, 2006, a 23-20 night win at Denver. The coldest they’ve been recently was last season, Nov. 16, 2014, a 21-degree day at Kansas City with a wind chill of 10.
The Vikings are in the final weeks of playing outside at the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium. The on-campus venue across the Mississippi River from downtown Minneapolis is the Vikings’ temporary home between the demolition of their old Metrodome downtown and the construction of Minnesota’s new, domed U.S. Bank Stadium.
The Vikings’ coldest home game in their temporary stadium was Nov. 30, 2014, when it was 12 degrees.
Sunday’s game could be the coldest Vikings home game in 44 years. It was zero degrees with a wind chill of minus 18 on Dec. 10, 1972, at Metropolitan Stadium when Minnesota hosted Green Bay.
The coldest NFL game was the “Ice Bowl,” the league’s title game between Green Bay and Dallas at Lambeau Field on New Year’s Eve in 1967. The temperature was minus 13 and wind chills hit minus 48.
NBC broadcaster Cris Collinsworth, who will be calling Sunday’s game, likes to refer to the coldest game by windchill in league history. Collinsworth played for the Bengals when they beat San Diego on Jan. 10, 1982 at Riverfront Stadium for the AFC title when the temperature was minus 9 and wind chills hit minus 59.
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