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This week, the Chicago players have been trying to replicate
Sunday's likely temperatures during practice sessions, though
coach John Fox felt it was impossible to ever get accustomed to
Arctic-like weather for a league game. "I've known a lot of
people that grew up in very cold-weather places," Fox was quoted
as saying on the Bears website. "I don't think they've gotten
used to it. You just deal with it. "That's pretty much been the
approach you take in the NFL, in my experience. You don't want
the shock value to be the day they (the players) arrive.
Sometimes if it is, you can't control it. But I don't think you
ever get used to it." Chicago defensive end Akiem Hicks, who
played college football at the University of Regina in
Saskatchewan, Canada, said: "You've just got to push through.
It's going to be cold. You're just going to have to suck it up.
"You can't do anything about it. You want to play the game, so
you've just got to take it." The coldest ever league game played
at Soldier Field took place on Dec. 22, 2008 when the
temperature at kickoff was minus 16.7C (2F) before the Bears
went on to clinch a 20-17 overtime win over the Packers. As for
the coldest ever league game in Chicago, that is believed to
have occurred on Dec. 16, 1951 when the mercury dipped to minus
18C (minus 1F) at Wrigley Field for a 24-14 loss to the Chicago
Cardinals. Other games this Sunday where frigid temperatures
have been forecast include the matchups between the New England
Patriots and the Broncos in Denver and the meeting between the
Tennessee Titans and the Chiefs in Kansas City.
(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in St. Augustine, Florida;
Editing by Andrew Both)
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