Are you thinking of doing some volunteer work over the holidays? Do you feel like you'd like to 'give something back to the community' ?
Well if you're in the Minneapolis area, and you have time and willingness to serve your fellow man, head down to TCF Bank Stadium, where the Minnesota Vikings are asking for volunteers for snow removal. And if you pass any homeless people along the way, why not bring them with? After all, the university has even offered to provide shovels ,if necessary.
And if you think there's no reward for charity, think again.
You can take comfort in knowing that you've saved Zygi Wilf and the Vikings organization a lot of money. TCF Bank Stadium holds 50,000, so they'll only have to refund the cost of 13,000 tickets. If they were holding this game in a venue that was prepared and suited for their purposes, they'd have had to refund all 63,000 tickets sold for this game.
But what of those 50,000 lucky ticketholders who still get to attend? What sort of holiday memories will they be able to recall afterwards?
The concession stands weren't built to withstand temperatures below 30 degrees. There are no beer taps. So expect a lot of flasks of hard alcohol to be smuggled in underneath the layers of clothing everyone will be wearing. I'm sure that will lead to lots of friendly exchanges among the chilled, grumpy patrons of this event who thought they were paying for an experience quite different from the one they'll receive.
And if I were the a member of the NFLPA, or a Chicago Bears team making a playoff run, I'd certainly be curious as to how the frozen playing field will effect player safety.
The Minnesota Vikings are asking for quite a bit from the community, in order to present a sporting event they still might not be able to pull off. A sporting event they would have moved, if they weren't being greedy.