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Section B · Page 8
The University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, January 20, 1998
Green Bay fans tap the Rockies at Packer home away from home
The Associated Press
GOLDEN, Colo. — They will gather Sunday in a dim roadhouse at the base of the Rocky Mountains in a blasphemous display of green and gold
to do the unthinkcowboys — the kind with spurs, not cleats. But on the Sunday of the NFC Championship game, about 200 Green Bay fans gathered, marking their hometowns with
For 19 years, Wisconsin transplants and Denver Broncos converts have gathered on game day to cheer for their team, surrounded by Packers flags, Packers posters, Packers dolls and, of course, Wisconsin bratwurst.
Hawley, a native of Ashland, Wis., bought the bar after moving to Colorado in 1967 when the Pack was riding high after winning the first Super Bowl.
“it's been a Packer bar ever since,” Hawley said. During the week, the bar stools are occupied by
them hometowns with pushpins on a large Wisconsin map.
"There's been some lean years", said James Johnson, who also goes by the name Coyote. As a young man, the Beloit, Wis., native cheered for Bart Starr.
"This here beard turned white waiting for last year's Super Bowl," he said.
Johnson, dressed in hiking boots, a Packers hard hat, Brett Favre's jersey and gold quilted long johns, explained his loyalty to the Pack bratauwet
"I screamed so hard that I blew out a lung and she had to rush me to the hospital."
James Johnson packers fan
his loyalty to the Pack as he fed his dog Chico a bratwurst.
ment while my wife was having a baby shower upstairs. I screamed so hard that I blew out a lung and she had to rush me to the hospital."
"I love 'em, and I never miss a game," he said. "I remember a few days after my daughter was born, I was watching them on TV in my baseday's championship game in San Diego against the Green Bay Packers.
Tracy Skagstad, 31, of Neenah, Wis., refused to accept a teaching job in Colorado until she located a Packers bar in her new home.
Others see Sundays at the lounge as a way to feel closer to home.
"I think I'm a bigger Packers fan now that I'm out here," said John Hanvey, who moved to Boulder from Stevens Point, Wis., four years ago. "Football to me is more about where you're from than the game itself, and coming here is like going home. There's herds of people here from Wisconsin."
"I found this place on the Internet," she said. "There's a Web site for Packer fans to find places around the country. I make all my travel arrangements around Green Bay games."
Lance Rogers arrived at the bar after the Packers clinched another trip to the Super Bowl. One of the few native Coloradans in the bar, Rogers looked right at home in his cheesehead hat, Green Bay terjev and Packer helmet beer holder.
"I watched the game at home," Rogers said. "I love the Pack and I love the bar — I just hate fighting to use the bathroom."
Broncos fans playing it cool for now
Denver forgoes the usual Broncomania to avoid jinx on team's Super Bowl hopes
The Associated Press
DENVER — Aching from four heartbreaking
Super Bowl losses, Denver Broncos fans are doing everything they can to avoid jinxing their team.
They are buying T-shirts, cups and caps in droves and desperately seeking tickets to Sun
But the craziness that accompanied the pregame hype in years past is missing — at least for now.
"A lot of the old fans have a degree of, 'We'll wait and see,' but the spirit is extremely high anywhere we go," said Rocky Brougham, who dresses
as Rocky the Leprechaun for Broncs games.
"Everybody is kind of holding their breath, though, because they have lived through a lot of defeat."
Broncomania has made Mile High Stadium one of the NFL's loudest venues, where the cheers and stumping feet have been nicknamed Rocky Mountain Thunder.
In the past two decades, the Broncos have been to the Super Bowl four times, with no wins to show for it.
During the first few trips, Broncomania hit a fevered pitch. Fans jumped into vats of orange Jell-O to win tickets. One modern-day Lady Godiva rode down a pedestrian mall, wearing only orange-and-blue paint and a smile. Thousands of fans packed the stadium on a non-game Sunday in 1987 to show their appreciation for the team's AFC title and Super Bowl berth. That was the season the Broncos lost 39-20 to the New York Giants.
By 1990, fans were more subdued, with only about 500 assembling for a pep rally downtown. That year, San Francisco defeated Denver 55-10.
This year, restraint is the watchword. The pep rally was set for Wednesday, after the team left town. And Mayor Wellington Webb has forgone the traditional bet with the mayor of the opposing
"We would really like to see Elway take this home.I really feel this is his last shot.."
Carol Griffith
broncos fan
team's hometown, saying he doesn't want to jinx the Broncos.
But most fans believe Broncomania will pick up this week, as sentiment grows for John Elway to finally win a Super Bowl.
About 200 people gathered outside the stadium Friday in hopes of buying Super Bowl tickets from season ticket-holders.
"I think it's going up," said Jim Quint of Denver.
"More people are talking about it."
Added Carol Griffith of Wheat Ridge, "I think everybody was afraid to invest up until this point. I think, though, our feeling is that this is more of a sentimental thing.
"We really would like to see Elway take this home. I really feel this is his last shot."
Super Bowl presents advertising spectacle
Controversial ads compete for fans' attention, interest
The Associated Press
NEW YORK—Holiday Inn had strong hopes a year ago for its Super Bowl commercial underscoring the hotel chain's $1 billion makeover.
Designed to grab attention in television's most competitive commercial environment, the ad showed a beautiful woman shocking a classmate at a high school reunion after having had a sex-change operation.
Holiday Inn executives expected viewers to get a chuckle and
check out the changes made to the aging hotel chain. But not everyone was amused, and within 48 hours of the commercial's debut, Holiday Inn scraped the ad.
"People definitely noticed it," said Craig Smith, a spokesman for the
Atlanta-based chain.
"Patrones objediente la urbita."
"But some objected to the subject matter. Once we found the metaphor was offensive, we thought the best tactic was to remove that metaphor from use."
Holiday Inn's experience illustrates the risks of paying huge sums for a few moments in the spotlight during what is usually the year's biggest TV audience.
His firm, Gallup & Robinson Inc., has been conducting telephone surveys of Super Bowl viewers the day after the game for the past seven years, and last year's survey found the Holiday Inn ad irritated a lot of people.
Super Bowl ads for Sunday sold out two months ago at $2.6 million per minute — the most expensive TV commercial time ever.
"When you get caught up in this kind of thing, you tend to look for something that is different, that will stick out and be remembered." said Scott Purvis, who heads a New Jersey advertising research firm. "But you don't want to leave people with a negative impression."
Purvis said 16 percent of those surveyed said they strongly disliked the commercial, the highest negative response the firm has found for a Super Bowl ad.
Cadillac created a fantasy ad that ran on the same telecast featuring model Cindy Crawford as a bored princess who leapt at the chance to escape her castle in a new Catera.
The Holiday Inn ad wasn't the only Super Bowl commercial vanked soon after its debut.
The company questioned if a supermodel was the right messenger.
interested in the $30,000 car, said Cadillac spokeswoman Julie Hamp. Hamp said there were worries inside the company that the ad could have been alienating potential customers.
The makers of Dirt Devil vacuum cleaners got a letter from the late Fred
objected to three Super Bowl ads that made it look as if Astaire were using vacuumums as props in dance routines.
Ava McKenzie wrote Royal Appliance Manufacturing Co. that its "patry, unconscionable commercials are the antithesis of everything my lovely, gentle father represented." She also sent a copy of the letter to Daily Variety, which published it.
But the Cleveland company said the ads were made with the blessings of Astaire's widow and McKenzie's step-mother, Robyn Astaire, who has the sole right to make such decisions about Fred Astaire's image.
Consumers liked the ads, said Deborah Holtkamp, director of advertising for the Dirt Devil brand.
Players, coaches insist professional hockey still going strong
Critics challenge claim point to low scores stagnant attendance
The Associated Press
VANCOUVER. British Columbia
Scoring is way down, salaries are way up and attendance is flat. Wayne Gretzky and other NHL stars are aging, and there
could be trouble ahead for some young franchises.
Then again, next month's Olympics could provide enough exposure to solve a myriad of problems.
Still, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman insists these difficulties don't provide an accurate reading of the state of hockey entering the second half of what could be the most important season in the league's 81-
year history.
"The ownership of franchises has never been stronger," Bettman said during All-Star weekend in Vancouver, which finished Sunday with the North American team's 8-7 victory against a "World" squad of European stars.
"If you exclude Carolina this year, I believe (attendance is) down six-tenths of 1 percent — coming off a record年, when we played at 90 percent capacity. I don't view that as a problem.
"It may well be that we've gotten to the point where defense has gotten too much of the upper hand on offense, and we may need to turn the dial a notch or two. We're not talking about radical solutions.
"Actually, I think the state of the league is pretty good."
And it's bound to get better when NHL stars go to Nagano, Japan, to take part in the Olympics for the first time. The league will shut down for 16 days. NHL players make up the entire United States and Canadian teams, while Sweden, Russia, Finland and the Czech Republic also will
have large NHL contingents.
"The most important thing is for people in the hockey community to do what's best for the game," said Anaheim's Paul Kariya, who will play for Canada. "Just look at all the attention. This is good for hockey."
Gretsky: One of the older players in the NHL.
Bettman though, said nobody should overstate the importance of pros in the Olympics.
"This is an opportunity to take another step forward," he said.
having trouble reaching the mandatory 12,000 season-ticket sales the league requires. Another new market, Carolina, has had trouble selling tickets since moving from Hartford. The team, which eventually will be based in Raleigh, N.C., has been playing in Greensboro, N.C.
While average annual salaries have shot up to more than $1 million, the money isn't buying goals. At the AllStar break, scoring is at a 42 year low pace of 5.28 per game.
Bettman said he has confidence in both markets, part of the league's Southern push.
"Here is a perception that may not be as good ... as a more wide-open, more free-scoring game would be," Bettman said.
He listed experiments the NHL might try in minor league and preseason games; moving the goal a few feet from the end boards; prohibiting goaltenders from playing the puck outside the crease; eliminating the red line; mandating forechecking; making power plays last a full two minutes even if a goal is scored; playing four quarters instead of three periods.
Bettman's assistant, Brian Burke, added that the size of goallie pads might be reduced. But he didn't think there was much the league could do to prevent the dreaded "trap" defensive system that has become a way of
"Make the net bigger, that's what I say," Phoenix wing Keith Tchakuk said, laughing. "You can't change everything ... but fans don't want to see 1-0 games."
The midseason star fests have averaged 16.5 goals in the 1990s, and even the new North America vs. World format couldn't keep this year's game from becoming a wide-open affair.
That's not a problem come All-Star time.
life for coaches seeking to protect their jobs by keeping games close.
"This format is the closest you can get to making it a competitive situation," Colorado's Peter Forsberg said. "You're always going to have a lot of goals. I know the fans like this a
"The most important thing is for people in the hockey community to do what's best for the game."
People also got to see outstanding performances by some of their favorite stars of old-notably Gretzky, Mark Messier, Ray Bourque and Jari Kurri. Messier turned 37 Sunday, Bourque and Kurri were already there, and Gretzky hits that number next week.
"There's always so much talk about age," Gretzky said. "There are always people saying, 'Well, you guys are 37, maybe you shouldn't play because you're old, maybe you should rest more because you're old.' You know, we just love to play."
anaheim player
Red Lyon Tavern
lot better. The scoring is down in the league, and people got to see some goals."
A touch of Irish in downtown Lawrence 944 Massachusetts 832-8228
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For further information, call 864-4264
Wednesday, January 21, 1998 7 p.m.
Studio 242, Robinson
AUDITION University Dance Company
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