Super Bowl Slip Up

by Michele Cheplic | More from this Blogger

31 Jan 2007 01:36 PM

The countdown is on--just four more days until the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts face off in Super Bowl XLI. While both teams get settled in Miami, their respective hometowns are making game day preparations of their own--some with more success than others.

Yesterday, efforts to honor the NFC Champion Chicago Bears hit a snag-a huge Fiberglass football helmet broke as it was being placed on the head of one of the lion statues that stands guard outside the Art Institute of Chicago. Project managers blame the weather. For those of you who don't live in the Great Lakes, we have been experiencing some beyond frigid temperatures recently and forecasters predict they will only get worse as we head into the weekend (I'm talking highs near MINUS 3 degrees with wind chills in the -20s and -30s). It seems the nasty weather (some in Chicago refer to it as "Bears weather") may have caused the Fiberglass to crack.

Then again, some theorize the broken helmet had nothing to do with the weather at all.

"I think the lions got swelled heads since we won," joked a worker for the company that made the helmets.

According to news reports, employees took the broken helmet back to their workshop, where they will enlarge and refinish them in time to place them on the lions some time today.

Those of you familiar with Chicago know that the Art Institute's lions are often decked out for special occasions. During the holidays, they're adorned with wreaths, and when the White Sox went to the World Series in 2005, they were fitted with hats. The company that created the World Series hats for the lions is the same one that made the ill-fitting helmets. Company executives say the baseball hats were easier to install because they just sat atop the lions' heads. They said the football helmet that broke yesterday is equipped with face guards, which must be fitted on the statues' heads.

You die-hard Bears fans may remember that the lions have worn Bears helmets before - in 1985 during the team's last trip to the Super Bowl. But those helmets were less sophisticated than the present ones---they were upside down Weber grills.

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Learn more about Michele Cheplic

Michele Cheplic was born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii, but now lives in Wisconsin. Michele graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in Journalism.

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