OT-Most miserable sporting event you have ever attended? (Weather)
While watching this Green Bay game dip down into the negatives, I began to think about the most miserable sporting event I had ever attended. I would have to say the 2006 Northwestern football game where we were smacked by freezing rain all game long. Fans decided huddling together near the bathrooms was a smarter choice than watching Michigan win a boring game 17-3.
January 5th, 2014 at 7:55 PM ^
January 5th, 2014 at 8:03 PM ^
Every
Sack
Piles up
Negative yards. By the time we got a sack, in the 2nd half, my sign was water logged.
January 5th, 2014 at 8:20 PM ^
January 5th, 2014 at 8:22 PM ^
January 5th, 2014 at 7:52 PM ^
I have actually never been to a sporting event live under 45 degrees and at least partly cloud. Not that I mind the weather.
January 5th, 2014 at 7:58 PM ^
January 5th, 2014 at 8:02 PM ^
January 5th, 2014 at 8:49 PM ^
January 5th, 2014 at 8:03 PM ^
2013 Spring Game. Cold & Boring.
January 6th, 2014 at 11:15 AM ^
How'd the O-Line look?
January 5th, 2014 at 8:04 PM ^
Cold, rainy, nasty and a sloppy football game on both sides to boot. Gah.
January 5th, 2014 at 8:04 PM ^
I remember sitting through the 1995 Purdue game, in the pouring rain. 5-0 final. At least we won, but it sucked!
January 5th, 2014 at 8:35 PM ^
I think your signature is broken. And it's making me more miserable than all of the memories of these miserable games.
January 5th, 2014 at 8:05 PM ^
Northwestern '08. Changed between rain and snow all game, so wet and cold.
January 5th, 2014 at 8:06 PM ^
For me it was 2001 UM v OSU at the Big House. It was miserable, cold with freezing rain and was Tressel's first year of coaching OSU. They ran the ball up the middle (go figure) like 350 times to beat us, and in the process swung the pendulum.
January 5th, 2014 at 8:13 PM ^
I went to a Browns/Chargers game while back that was extremely cold. I've worked a number of college games in the extreme cold or hurricane rain, UCF/Marshall a few years back was pretty fun with all the rain.
I was at Michigan/OSU this year and that was miserable, or at least the ending was.
January 5th, 2014 at 8:15 PM ^
January 5th, 2014 at 8:17 PM ^
2013 OSU-Indiana. Snowy, 20-26 mph winds, and and a windchill in the low teens. It wasn't even an exciting game.
January 5th, 2014 at 8:23 PM ^
2008 vs NW at the big house. Season was a dumpster fire. The weather was freezing rain. I got in for $5 and sat at the 50 in row A.
January 5th, 2014 at 8:29 PM ^
I went with a friend who is a ND fan to South Bend for the UM-ND game in 2008. It was rainy. Michigan turned the ball over 6 times. Michigan outgained ND by over 100. Michigan had 7 more first downs than ND. Steven Threet had more passing yards than Jimmy Clausen. Charlie Weis even tore his ACL that game....
Michigan still got beat 35-17. And then Weis joked about his injury saying "Tommy Brady doesn't have anything on me" and he actually called himself an "athlete."
UGHHHHH
January 5th, 2014 at 8:36 PM ^
It's a tie between the outdoor hockey game in 2010 up in Madison (may have been the coldest I've ever been in my life, and I couldn't even see the puck), 1996 Boston College (literal waterfall flowing underneath our seats), 2008 Northwestern (Fan Endurance winner), and for sheer heat, either 1995 Virginia or 1998 EMU (aided by the fact the concession stands ran out of water).
And I was supposed to go to the infamous 1995 Purdue game, but I was fortunately home sick with the flu. My dad, aunt, and uncle stayed the entire time, watching the proceedings from underneath a clear plastic tarp.
January 5th, 2014 at 8:39 PM ^
January 5th, 2014 at 8:51 PM ^
My worst was an early spring Tiger game about 3 years ago. Peralta hit a walk-off HR in the B9 to win it.
However it was a nice spring day outside when I left home and I was unprepared for the chilly windy evening after the sun went down. I was hypothermic in late April LOL.
I do recall a late season M football game as a student forget Ohio or Iowa probably in the 89-93 years where we sat at the very top row of the stadium. THAT was cold. There's a lot of wind up there!
I have yet to take a blanket into the stadium nor have I ever used the thermo (hot-hands) warmer packs but I would try these as I get older and wiser.
January 5th, 2014 at 8:56 PM ^
A game against Miami that was in the 50s and such rain that it was pouring down the steps of the stadium like white-water rapids.
We left at halftime and drove home stripped down to our skivvies.
January 5th, 2014 at 8:57 PM ^
Cold, rainy, and we lost. It was the game after the MSU game.
January 5th, 2014 at 8:58 PM ^
about as cold as can be without having the rain turn to snow. molk got hurt early on and there went the offense. two oldest sons were pretty game, but by about the end of the 3rd quarter i pulled the plug and we jogged back to the truck.
runner up, but more for fun, was a lions vs. vikings game around 1970 played at tiger stadium. vikings at the time wore road white uniforms, only purple helmets. snowing so hard you could only see their helmets.
January 5th, 2014 at 9:30 PM ^
January 5th, 2014 at 10:40 PM ^
i would've watched that one from home if i was wearing a sling. a true fan you are rabbit.
January 5th, 2014 at 11:38 PM ^
That was 2009 and it was freaking miserable, between the result of the game and horrible rain/sleet that fell all day. It is the only game I have ever left early (OK, that's not quite true, I left the MSU game this season with about 40 seconds left). Ugh.
January 5th, 2014 at 9:16 PM ^
January 5th, 2014 at 9:19 PM ^
January 5th, 2014 at 9:47 PM ^
The Diehard 500 at Talladega Super Speedway on July, 30, 1989.
The actual temperature was 106 degrees with a heat index of 115. The bleachers were metal and they were cooking people. Paramedics were literally running all over the place treating people for heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
Back then you were allowed to bring your own coolers in, so my buddy and I carried in a large cooler. I put an extra shirt in the cooler before heading inside. By the time we got to our seats I was soaked in sweat and decided to put on the shirt in the cooler. The ice was already melting and it was soaked it ice cold water. I put it on and froze, but it only took a minute for it to warm up. I continued to switch shirts every fifteen minutes for the next three and a half hours, but it was a truly miserable day.
January 5th, 2014 at 9:51 PM ^
January 5th, 2014 at 9:56 PM ^
The Justin Fargas game 1998 at Northwestern. It still haunts me and I am afraid to buy tickets to football games in advance of a weather forecast because of it.
January 5th, 2014 at 10:17 PM ^
January 5th, 2014 at 10:19 PM ^
Played somewhere in New Jersey in April. Weather was cold at the start, and within minutes, there was a freak snowstorm, so the game was played in the same conditions as this game:
January 5th, 2014 at 10:20 PM ^
There was rain, sleet, snow, and hail at some point during the game, and all I had was a windbreaker because it was actually not too bad when I left.
Spent halftime in the bathroow huddled around a heater with everyone who didn't leave. There were maybe 20,000 left by the end of the game, and I stayed because the game was close, but of course the team didn't come back, given it was 2008, nor did they have the decency to let Northwestern pull away and let me leave.
Oh, and literally the first 4-5 buses at CC Little showed up out of service. There were literally about 100-150 people, maybe even more all desperately trying to huddle under the tiny shelter (this was before the fancy ones there are now) and the numbers kept going up because some idiot decided not to make sure all the buses heading to North Campus weren't taking a break at the same time.
The truely awful thing is, I initially forgot my ticket and had to go back for it. My roommate hadn't left because he decided he didn't want to deal with it. Should have taken that as a sign, but hey, at least I can say I'm loyal. (But seriously, they should have given everybody their money back who stayed for the whole thing as a sign of gratitude)
January 5th, 2014 at 10:27 PM ^
Nothing like being frozen and exhausted and then having to trek all the way back up to North.
January 5th, 2014 at 10:43 PM ^
January 5th, 2014 at 11:02 PM ^
As a bunch of people above, the 1995 Purdue 5-0, freezling, sleety horrible game. As I recall, it was parent's weekend, so nobody showed up due to the weather. I shouldn't have went, but I had a man crush on Mike Alstott and wanted to see him play. Instead I got to watch the punters, sloppy fields, and my fingers freeze.
January 5th, 2014 at 11:11 PM ^
'99 Illinois was cold and rainy, but not particularly worse than many other games--but I hated it in part because it was a dreadful game. Even before the collapse I was just waiting for Michigan to build enough of a lead so I could do. Just awful.
Empirically, the worst weather I ever experienced at a game was at a D2 playoff game between UMD and Northwest Missouri State here in Duluth. D2 folks call it the ice bowl, and in darkness, 6 degree temps (and falling) and brutal 20 mph winds, it's a good name for it.
Pretty tough game. Low-scoring obviously. Fans were absolutely bananas, especially when UMD took a late lead (17-14 I think?) on a 4th down 30-yard QB scramble TD.
It was bitterly cold, but it was an exciting cold and everyone there knew it. Honestly I felt worse at the Illinois game.
January 6th, 2014 at 11:06 AM ^
Can't remember the exact circumstances, I think they completed a long pass headed toward the north endzone and the receiver fell down without being touched by the trailing defensive back. That was an awful game. I see someone mentioned the 1988 Minnesota game, which was very rainy and cold but not as cold as Purdue 1995. I suppose those would be my top two.
January 6th, 2014 at 12:37 PM ^
The way the game unfolds certainly influences how we remember it later, but '95 Purdue was just a weather nightmare. The precipitation never stopped, but it changed from driving rain to sleet as the game went on, while the temperature dropped below freezing. It's the coldest I've ever been at a sporting event. There have been others where the temperature was lower, but it was at least dry. This was soaking wet and cold, and you often couldn't even see because of the sleet. I left after the third quarter - one of the only times I've ever left a Michigan game early - because I couldn't take any more.
'08 Northwestern is the closest one I've experienced to that, but I was able to stick it out to the end that time (maybe I was better dressed). The combination of us losing, being already eliminated from bowl eligibility and that weather definitely made it miserable.
On the flip side, I remember the '98 Syracuse game being really hot. I don't know if it was that much hotter than a typical early-season game, but the horrible play on the field certainly made it harder to ignore the heat.
January 6th, 2014 at 12:10 AM ^
January 6th, 2014 at 12:35 AM ^
Either the 2009 game vs Penn State or the 2011 game again msu aka ''trash tornado game''.
All it did was rain the whole game against PSU and we couldn't move the ball for shit. Lost 35-10. It was a cold rain as well. Temps were probably in the low 40s.
I was in the upper deck in Spartan Stadium in 2011. Just so you know, you feel ALL the wind up there.
January 6th, 2014 at 9:00 AM ^
Bears vs Bengals 1995, game was on December 10 in Cincinnati and it was bitterly cold that day. It was gametime temp of 8 degrees with a wind chill factor of -9. Needless to say there was a constant line in the only heated place, the restrrom.
Had great seats that day though, front row of the endzone by the visitors entrance. Couldn't ask for better seats. We ended up leaving just a little early as we were so cold we couldn't take it anymore.
BTW, my beloved Bears lost that day 16-10.
January 6th, 2014 at 9:08 AM ^
In terms of what happened on the field? UM vs FSU in the early 90's, easy
January 6th, 2014 at 9:14 AM ^
Last year's Michigan State game. Pouring rain, just warm enough to be rain, surrounded by Spartans, and that game had something to do with it too.
January 6th, 2014 at 9:14 AM ^
Michigan-Ohio State 2007 was pretty miserable, not to mention the loss.
January 6th, 2014 at 9:55 AM ^
ugh
That game...sheesh. Yet another game that Michigan should have won, but didn't. I hate the fact that OSU didn't pass the ball once in the second half, or at least I think that is what happened. Just a terrible game.