News: Snow Expected on the Eve of the Super Bowl
(Long Island, N.Y.)Bad news for Long Islanders came once again in the form of the weather forecast. A storm expected to reach Long Island by 10pm on Friday may put a damper on weekend plans for America’s biggest game. In case Friday’s possible black ice situation and Saturday’s storm don’t keep you from enjoying Sunday’s festivities, here are some things to know about this year’s Super Bowl:
More parties are planned for this year’s Super Bowl than those that transpired for New Year’s Eve. Despite the recession, over $55 million is expected to go into purchasing Super Bowl snacks within the week before Sunday. Be sure to thank hosts/hostesses of Super Bowl parties because more than ten million hours of work will be spent preparing game-time dishes.
Game-watchers concerned with their diets should know that the Super Bowl comes right behind Thanksgiving as the most extreme holiday in terms of food consumption. Over twenty-eight million pounds (15,000 tons) of chips and eight million pounds (4,000 tons) of popcorn will be eaten between kick-off and the last set of downs. The Super Bowl is second to Cinco De Mayo in the rate of guacamole and avocado ingestion; over 13.2 million pounds from 26 million avocados will be sold as ingredients for eight million pounds of guacamole.
Most Long Islanders would agree that the signature meal of the Super Bowl is that of limitless beer and wings. Stats from last year’s event showed that nearly 450 million wings were consumed along with fifty million cases of beer. This makes it no surprise that six percent of Americans opt for a sick day on Monday morning as they purchase antacids and mourn the loss of America’s favorite sport until the next season. (I know that’s what I’ll be doing; just kidding!)
For those game-watchers not headed for a party on Super Bowl Sunday, there are tons of venues on Long Island that ensure a festive experience. Farmingdale’s Main Street strip offers several places that are fitted to watch the game. The Library Café charges $35/person to host a custom party equipped with a private room and bartender, while Wings Over Farmingdale provides a variety of options for game-time munchies.
For those people who know nothing about football but enjoy tuning in for the Super Bowl, commercials, and half-time show, here are some facts about the event’s glory: twenty-seven out of thirty-two NFL teams have made it to the Super Bowl where the championship game is held to decide which team will receive the Lombardi trophy; the Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Denver Broncos are among teams that have made multiple trips to the Super Bowl; the San Francisco 49ers are the only team to have a perfect record by winning the Super Bowl all five times they’ve played it; the only team with a perfect season record (17-0) was the 1972 Miami Dolphins.
This year’s Super Bowl will feature the league’s oldest franchise, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Green Bay Packers, a team that once lost their franchise quarterback to the New York Jets. It’s true that Long Islanders don’t have the pleasure of seeing any New York teams play in 2011’s Big Game. Nonetheless, a reason to tune in could be to see if the Packers defeat the team that knocked off the Jets in the AFC Championship game (and the opposite reason for Giants fans).
Super Bowl games often host many “firsts” in the NFL. For example, the Super Bowl of February 2007 was the first Big Game to be held in the rain. It staged a showdown between the Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears; both teams had African-American head coaches. Indy’s Tony Dungy became the first African-American coach to win the title, with the help of a quarterback who held the record for the most touchdown passes in a regular season. Those who are ignorant of team players should watch the Sony commercials with Justin Timberlake, because you may have heard of Peyton Manning.
This year’s Super Bowl will be held at Dallas Cowboys’ stadium in Arlington, Texas. The arena was constructed in 2009 with a $1.2 billion price-tag (that’s about half of the unbalanced budget of Nassau County). It holds ninety thousand seats but can fit an extra ten thousand people when standing room is utilized. It’s equipped with a retractable roof and a video screen that spans sixty yards long.
Ticket prices for this year’s game started at $2,599. Sales began a year in advance and lasted for months. The NFL is only able to sell 1% of all tickets to fans, and does so by a random-drawing system. This year’s game will be announced by Joe Buck and former Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback Troy Aikman.
The halftime show will showcase The Black Eyed Peas and the pregame show will feature Keith Urban. The former is a band that debuted in ’95 and has sold more than 28 million albums in addition to 31 million digital music tracks. For those on the fence about going out on Sunday, take into consideration that the crime rate drops 75% during the game. At the very least, come Monday morning we’ll all finally know if that “Black and Yellow” song will remain on the radio.
