LIGHTHOUSE POINT….  The final NFL game to ever be played at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome took place this afternoon with the Minnesota Vikings besting the Detroit Lions 14-13. Neither club had anything to play for other then to get the season over and done with. The Lions could have actually had a lock on the NFC North about a month ago and lost a string of games to teams they probably should have beat, and thus a chance at the postseason. The Cheeseweasels took those honors by beating the Chicago Bears today in the Windy City by a 33-28 score with a late touchdown. The Packers will be the lone team from the North to gain a playoff berth.

In spite of my disdain for the NFL and their business practices, I still have a soft spot in my heart and a lot of sentimental memories of the Vikings. I contemplated going to the Metro for the game but would have had to jump through a lot of hoops to make it and decided to forego the trip. Perhaps I’ll try for the Grand Opening of the new digs in a couple of years. I can recall early in the summer of 1961 when the recently hired trainer-to-be, Fred Zamberletti and his family became our new neighbors. Fred was busy getting prepared for the clubs first training camp ever, and was also getting things setup at Midway Stadium for practice, and at Metropolitan Stadium for Sunday game days.

I don’t think I went to a game until the next season but spent time hanging around with Fred, going to the Midway to do some errands and occasionally to the Met for the same. My folks went to most of the games those first few years courtesy of passes from Fred, and when I finally went to a game, I got to see the great Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts. The team eventually got a Ford van with the Vikes logo and horns painted upon the side of it. When I rode around town in the “Viking Van” I have to say that my young chest was probably pretty puffed up.

Soon, some of the players became neighbors too, and good friends. I got to chum around with them a bit. For a young kid going to Homecroft grade school in St. Paul, it was shaping up to be a dream childhood. My buddies and I used to have a football game everyday after school in the fall. Full contact tackle football, no equipment of course. They were pretty much speechless the day I showed up at the neighborhood field with Gordy Smith and Doug Mayberry as my “team”.

In 1963 Fred and his first wife had a baby boy, Tom, and I was about the 3rd or 4th person to hold him upon coming home. We have been close friends ever since. We went to a lot of games out at the old Met and at the Dome too and we lived and died with the team. The four Super Bowl entries were as sweet as the losses incurred within them were bitter and devastating to take. Even more so because you knew some of the people involved and what it took for them to get there.

I can remember seeing former owner, the late Max Winter at all of the games and I always believed him to be a class guy. Much more so then Red McCombs or Zygi Wilf. When I think of McCombs and Wilf, I see two guys whose primary focus was/is to increase the value of the team (by obtaining a taxpayer built new stadium) and then cash their chips at the right time for a really big payday. If Wilf was as focused on his on-field product to the extent that he has been consumed by getting a stadium built I might actually have to start watching again.

But I think of Winter and then of Wilf and there is no comparison. Max loved the team and the players. Wilf? He loves how much the new building will boost his equity and he will be gone within 5 years of the new facilities opening. Good riddance. After Max passed the Viking mystique slowly started to fade away until now, it seems totally gone, missing forever more. McCombs and Wilf just pissed all over it, especially Big Red and his cheap assed, insincere jingoism. Christ, even Mike Lynn kept it floating for a little while and most people around the club wanted to strangle him.

The transition years will be played over on campus. The Gophers have a really nice stadium but I wouldn’t look for anything from this team in the stadium transition years. When the Bears played out the Soldier Field renovation down at Champaign at the U of Illinois, it was pretty much a disaster. The Vikes aren’t good right now and won’t be in the near future. For now though, I am smiling a bit and then again, maybe feeling a little indifference to the day. Melancholy? Don’t know, can’t sum it up.

I can count my family and even myself amongst some of the first real fans of the club. We have literally seen it from just about Day one. I can remember games on black and white TV, unloading cases and cases of white athletic tape at the Midway, the soda machine in the locker room that didn’t require coins, cleaning and polishing helmets, shoes, etc. Great chow in the reporters mess, chowing down at the pizza place at Sibley Plaza with players after home games, Tommy Masons pet monkey, and countless more memories that can bring both smiles and tears.

So the Dome will soon be gone, the memories will not. I can recall seeing the first event there, exhibition baseball with the Twins against Pete Roses Phillies. I have to say it was unusual and took some getting used to. While a lot of special things happened there, in the end it was just a big pile of concrete and canvas, a building without color or character. While a Wrigley Field can endure for decades a MetroDome can barely make it beyond 30 years of use. It was a political compromise of a project that couldn’t last and it’s time has come, few tears will be shed… PEACE

Marc Elliott is a free lance sports opinion writer who splits time between his hometown in Illinois and Minnesota. Elliott grew up in the Twin Cities with many of his childhood neighbors working or playing for the Vikings and Twins. He participated in baseball, football and hockey before settling on hockey as his own number one sport. Elliott recently wrote “The Masked Fan Speaks” column for the Lake County News Chronicle for ten years and was a prominent guest on the former “All Sports” WDSM 710AM in Duluth.