There were four million fans in attendance at the 1967 NFL Championship game if you believed everyone who says they were there. One unsung group that I know was there, because it is one of the reasons I went to college in La Crosse, was the Marching Chiefs of the (then) Wisconsin State University at La Crosse.
They played the pre-game, national anthem and halftime show. Because the field was frozen, they did not perform their half-time show on the field as planned, but lined up and played it from the sidelines, nonetheless. Since I started at La Crosse in September of 1970, some Ice Bowl veterans were senior members of the band. That’s us in the 1973 Orange Bowl parade.
There are apocryphal stories of mouthpieces sticking to the lips of brass players, but to the best of my knowledge, they were just that, stories. Brass players remove the mouthpieces when they’re not performing and keep them warm to prevent such an occurrence. Reeds, on the other hand, are not normally removed or warmed. The result in sub-zero weather, as I know from personal experience from a frigid game in Eau Claire, is that on your first toot, the reed splits and you spend the rest of the show with a useless prop in your hands. This happened in Green Bay to that band, as well.
So that is my piece of the original Ice Bowl. I was in the same band. As for watching the game back in 1967, I don’t remember watching it, though I must have because I remember the band. I don’t remember if I was home watching it or if we were over at my cousin’s. I remember a night when we were at my cousin’s and our car wouldn’t start, so my uncle had to drive me and my family home, so the temperature fits. But I don’t remember the game. Isn’t that odd?
