Villager Sox Jung still has the ticket from the Ice Bowl, the game which is considered by many to be greatest-ever football game.
It was New Year’s Eve 1967. Jung lived in Menasha, Wis. and was a die-hard Green Bay Packers fan. As a boy he and his friends would sneak into the games.
But on that fateful day in 1967, Jung was armed with his $10 ticket to the game.
It was nicknamed the Ice Bowl because the temperature at Lambeau Field in Green Bay that day was minus 15 degrees with a wind chill knocking the temperature down to minus 48 degrees.
“It was the frozen tundra,” said Jung who was 36 at the time. “They were slipping and sliding all over the place.”
He said they had step up heaters on the field, to no avail. The failed system was later given the name Lombardi’s Folly, in honor of the legendary Green Bay Packers’ coach.
The beer was frozen.
“But you could poke your finger through the foam and get down to the beer,” Jung said.
The game featured the Packers and the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL title game, an event that would later morph into the Super Bowl.
With 16 seconds remaining on the clock and the Packers down 17-14, quarterback Bart Starr conferred on the sidelines with Vince Lombardi.
With the Packers on the two-foot line, Lombardi is said to have told Starr to “Run it, and let’s get the hell out of here!”
Starr went over the top, across the goal line and into the history books.
“When he went over the top, we couldn’t believe it,” said Jung who was seated in the end zone that day.
Today, his Ice Bowl ticket is a treasured item.
“We didn’t know that day that this game would live on and on,” Jung said. “But I can tell you I will never forget it.”
