ICE BOWL : It’s Still Considered Among Best NFL Games, but Plenty of Myths Surround Packers’ Defeat of Cowboys in 1967 Championship Game

It visits us once a year or so, usually around the holidays, usually just to say hello.

We turn on the TV and there it is, in grainy film, this old acquaintance known as the Ice Bowl.

The Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys. The 1967 NFL championship game played in temperatures of 13-19 below zero. On a sheet of ice at Green Bay’s Lambeau Field.

Bart Starr of the Packers running a one-foot quarterback sneak behind Jerry Kramer. Scoring the winning touchdown with 13 seconds remaining. A 21-17 Packer victory. Legendary coach Vince Lombardi shaking his fist in rare glee.

The aura of men trying to play football while blowing steam and chipping the ice off the ground. The birth of the legendary phrase, frozen tundra.

Like an old acquaintance, we embrace the Ice Bowl every year and think we know it well.

But like many old acquaintances, we don’t.

Now that the Cowboys and Packers are meeting again in a championship game for the first time since that infamous New Year’s Eve of 28 years ago--they play Sunday in Dallas--the legend needs a little de-icing.

That quarterback sneak?

It was not a quarterback sneak. The play called for Starr to hand the ball to running back Chuck Mercein. Some Packers still don’t know why he decided to keep it.

Jerry Kramer?

He didn’t make the main block alone, as is customarily described. It was a double-team effort led by center Ken Bowman, who is still not happy that Kramer made a career out of taking all the credit.

Parties from both sides agree that Kramer’s biggest contribution to history was that he jumped offside on the play, but it was never called.

The winning score?

It was actually made on the previous play, by running back Donny Anderson on a plunge that both Packers and Cowboys agree moved the ball across the goal line.

Anderson still wonders if his life would have been different if Lee Roy Jordan had not knocked the ball out of his hands and forced him to tuck it back on the other side of the goal line after the play was ruled dead.

Genius Vince Lombardi?

He might have shut off the field’s $80,000 heating system to cause the field to freeze in the first place.

And really, now, what was a genius doing trying to win a title game on a running play with no timeouts . . . when a field goal would have tied it?

If Starr doesn’t score, the Cowboys win and NFL history dramatically changes. If Lombardi calls that play today, he gets ripped from here to Howie Long.

Wonderful aura?

Here’s your aura. The pregame and halftime marching-band shows were canceled when an official noticed blood on some of the musician’s faces.

It was so cold, their lips had stuck to the mouthpieces of their instruments, and then split when removed.

Frozen tundra?

John Facenda, the late NFL Films announcer whose hearty voice provided narration for many childhood dreams, used hundreds of phrases when describing Green Bay’s field.

“Frozen tundra” was not one of them.

He never said it.

Nobody has any idea who did.

Now for the rest of the Ice Bowl story:

THE SETTING

The Packers and Cowboys were playing for the NFL championship and a chance to advance to Super Bowl II.

The Packers had won their previous title matchup in Dallas, 34-27, in a game that was considered a better contest than the Ice Bowl.

In the final moments in the Cotton Bowl, the Packers intercepted a pass in the end zone after Cowboy quarterback Don Meredith had been knocked askew.

The intercepting safety was Tom Brown, the rushing linebacker Dave Robinson.

See if that Packer trivia bore from next door knows that one.

THE MOTIVATION

The Cowboys were seeking their first championship since joining the league in 1960.

Lombardi, whose team had won the NFL championship in 1965 and the inaugural Super Bowl title after the 1966 season, was hoping to become the first coach ever to win three consecutive championships.

“He talked about that,” said Bowman. “He wanted it bad.”

So bad that he began screaming at CBS cameras to leave the sidelines--”This is my office. Get outta here!” he reportedly shouted--even though the network had scheduled a live 30-minute pregame show of player interviews.

Perhaps this is also why the Ice Bowl is known as the day Pat Summerall coined the word filler.

THE WAKE-UP CALL

“Good morning, Mr. Rentzel. It’s 8 a.m.. It’s 15 below zero and there’s a 20-m.p.h. wind coming out of the northwest. Have a nice day.”

This was the wake-up call from the Holiday Inn operator as heard by Cowboy receiver Lance Rentzel the morning of the game.

THE PREGAME RITUAL

The door of Cowboy John Niland’s hotel room was frozen shut. He could not board the team bus until a hotel worker broke it down.

THE SERIOUS PREGAME RITUAL

The Cowboys were so spooked by the frozen field, some of them removed the hard-rubber tips from their cleats and played with the sharp metal exposed, hoping it would cut through the ice.

THE FROZEN ZEBRA

The pea in referee Norm Schachter’s whistle froze before the opening kickoff.

Official Joe Connell’s lip split after he’d blown his whistle immediately after the opening kickoff.

So Schachter announced that no whistles be used.

For the rest of the game, officials stopped play by shouting, “He’s down,” or “Hold up.”

THE HEROES

The telecast of the game has the sounds of excitement that will live forever because Summerall and partner Ray Scott insisted on announcing the action through an open press box window.

THE WIMP?

Bob Hayes, the Cowboy star receiver, ran his routes with his hands in his pants.

He had only three catches for 16 yards--none after halftime--and has spent the last 28 years defending himself against the scorn of players from both sides.

THE LEAD

The Packers took a 14-0 edge after their third possession on touchdown pass plays of eight and 43 yards from Starr to Boyd Dowler.

“I know one thing,” Dowler told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “If I would have tried running patterns with my hands in my pants, that Italian coach of mine would have yanked me out of there so fast, and I would have been history.”

THE GLOVES

Ernie Stautner, Cowboy assistant, ordered that the defensive players not wear gloves so they could better grab fumbles and intercept passes.

After a few series, defensive end Willie Townes saw the effectiveness of the gloved Packer defenders and made a decision.

“I said, ‘The hell with it. I’m getting gloves and keeping my hands warm,’ ” he said.

Shortly thereafter, he hit Starr and forced a fumble that George Andrie ran seven yards into the end zone for a touchdown.

Moments after that, Willie Wood fumbled a punt and the Cowboys recovered, leading to a field goal by Danny Villanueva that cut the Packer lead to 14-10 at halftime.

THE FANS

Throughout the game, the Packer fans in the front row leaned over the railing and pulled the plug on the Cowboys’ heated benches.

THE PAYBACK

Bar owners throughout Green Bay told stories of fans who would walk into their establishments after the game, warm up, then promptly pass out.

The fans were reportedly finally feeling the effect of gallons of brandy and peppermint schnapps that were passed through the bleachers. Because of the cold, they were unaffected by the alcohol until their systems had thawed.

THE TIP-OFF

Some Packer defenders must still wonder why they didn’t notice Cowboy running back Dan Reeves put his hands in his pants before a fourth-quarter play near midfield, with the Packers still leading, 14-10.

It turns out, Reeves was preparing to pull up after taking a handoff and throw a 50-yard pass to Rentzel. It worked. Rentzel scored, giving the Cowboys a 17-14 lead.

By then, the temperature had dropped to minus-19. The field was unplayable. The Packers missed a field-goal attempt with 9:44 remaining, and the Cowboys thought the game was over.

“But they didn’t know Coach Lombardi,” said running back Anderson. “What happened at the end of that game was exactly what Coach Lombardi was all about.”

THE PITS

Anderson tried to keep his hands warm by sticking them in the armpits of guard Gale Gillingham.

THE TECHNOLOGY

The Cowboys tried to keep warm by wearing garbage bags under their jerseys.

THE DRIVE

With 4:50 left in the game, the Packers took over the ball at their 32-yard line.

On their previous 10 possessions, the Packers had been unable to move the ball more than 14 yards.

In the next five minutes, they advanced five times that far.

“Bart said, ‘OK guys, let’s go to work. Let’s get it done.’ ” Anderson said. “Then for the rest of the drive, nobody said another word. Just Bart calling the plays.

“Nobody had to say anything because nine years of Vince Lombardi was in that huddle with us.”

THE BULL

The answer to a trivia question gained 27 of the final 30 yards of the drive, with 19 yards on a screen pass and eight yards on a run.

His name? Chuck Mercein.

His background? He was a 225-pound rookie running back from Yale, acquired a few months earlier from the semipro Westchester (N.Y.) Bulls.

The reason he was suddenly used? He was so heavy and slow, Starr correctly figured he was their only ballcarrier who wouldn’t slip.

THE FIRST SCORE

On his second of two plunges from the one-yard line, Anderson crossed the goal line. This has been confirmed by both Cowboys and Packers in the vicinity.

He wonders what would have happened if Jordan had not knocked the ball loose after he had scored, if he could have slipped further past the line before the official found him.

Although Anderson earned two Super Bowl rings and a Pro Bowl invitation in his football career, and although he is a successful Dallas businessman, he sometimes wonders how his life would have changed.

“For about the last, what, 30 years, for one hour a day around Super Bowl time, the whole world sees Bart Starr score,” Anderson said. “Who knows. Maybe Donny Anderson would have been a bigger star if he was the one who scored.”

But he shrugs the ghosts away.

“You know, Bart Starr was Mr. Green Bay,” he said. “He was meant to score that ball.”

THE OFFSIDE

Jethro Pugh, the man blocked on Starr’s winning score, has been claiming it for years.

Bowman, who was snapping the ball, now confirms it.

Kramer was offside on the play.

“Jerry was real quick off the ball,” he said. “I remember snapping the ball and he was gone.”

THE GLORY HOG

The blocking pattern on the winning play was known as a “post drive.”

Kramer stood Pugh up, and Bowman knocked him back, paving the way for Starr.

“That’s how I saw it,” said the Cowboys’ Townes.

And this is how the winning run would have been described to the world, except for something Kramer said to Bowman as he laid a hand on the youngster’s shoulder before the postgame interview session.

“He said, ‘Kenny, let an old man have his moment in the spotlight. You have 10 more years to be here,’ ” Bowman said. “I was so young and dumb, I believed him. I believed I would make another block and be involved in a big play like this again.”

Today, as a generally anonymous public defender in Tucson, Ariz., watching Kramer reap the rewards of being a famous author and Packer hero, Bowman sometimes wonders.

“I never realized that I would never make another block like that,” he said. “And I never realized that that would be the play of the century.”

THE REPERCUSSIONS

Today at alumni gatherings, Kramer jokingly questions Bowman, “Were you even at that game?”

But according to Bowman, what had happened to Kramer since taking credit for that block is not funny.

“If anything, I think it hurt Jerry,” Bowman said. “I think the powers that be took a look at that whole situation, and that’s why he’s not in the Hall of Fame.”

THE CAMERAS

With every “expert” in the stadium figuring the Packers were going to pass on that final play, including Summerall, TV cameras were ordered to focus on the wide receivers.

But the equipment was frozen, and the cameras would not move. So they remained facing the back of the defense, from where CBS captured one of pro football’s most memorable scenes.

THE PAYOFF

For their game, the Cowboys earned $5,879 a man, and the Packers made $7,951. For that, they suffered through severe frostbite and generally the worst afternoon of their lives.

THE QUOTE

“Cold? What cold? I didn’t notice any cold.”

--Vince Lombardi