Ice falls off stadium, injures six

Associated Press

ARLINGTON, Texas

Runways too snowy to receive airliners packed with football fans. Sidewalks too icy for cowboy boots. Temperatures too cold to distinguish Dallas from Pittsburgh or Green Bay.

Just two days before the Super Bowl, a fresh blast of snow and ice canceled hundreds of flights, transformed highways into ribbons of white and caused dangerous sheets of ice to fall from Cowboys Stadium, sending at least six people to the hospital. It was enough to turn the biggest week in American sports into a Super Mess.

The six people hurt Friday were private contractors who had been hired by the NFL to prepare the stadium for the game. One man was hit in the head, another in the shoulder. None of the injuries was considered life-threatening.

Most stadium entrances were closed as a p recaution. Officials raised the temperature inside the arena in an attempt to melt remaining ice.

The Dallas-Fort Worth area received as much as 5 inches of snow overnight — nearly twice its annual average — and by Friday morning downtown Dallas hotels were selling ski hats and scarves alongside cowboy hats. A winter storm warning was issued for suburban Arlington, home of the $1.3 billion stadium where the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers are to play Sunday.

“It looks like, ‘Oh, no, I’m back in Canada,”’ said Sammy Sandu, a 32-year-old property developer from Kelowna, British Columbia. “It’s just pouring down snow. Are we still at home, or have we left? We didn’t drink that much last night, did we?”

Forecasters expected game day to be mostly sunny, with highs in the 40s, which would probably not be warm enough to melt all the snow and ice.

Asked if the weather could affect future Super Bowl bids, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the conditions this year have been exceptional.

“We’ve had a winter to remember. Some would say to forget,” Goodell said. “It’s going to be a great weekend for us, and the weather’s getting better.“

The Super Bowl is scheduled to be played in Indianapolis next year and in the open-air New Meadowlands stadium in New Jersey in 2014.