The Minnesota Vikings will have a unique, inherent advantage on Sunday when the Seattle Seahawks visit Minneapolis for the NFC Wildcard Game: the warmer sideline.
Temperatures for Sunday afternoon’s game are forecast to be near zero, with a wind chill that could drop as low as twenty below zero. The Winona Daily News characterized the forecast as “soul-crushingly cold.” It will pose a unique challenge for both teams.
However, Minnesota may have a tiny bit of an advantage. According to ProFootballTalk’s Michael David Smith, during their brief stay at TCF Bank Stadium, the Vikings elected to use the north sideline as the home one, in contrast to the regular tenants, the Golden Gophers, who use the south one. The reasoning is simple: the south end of the stadium hosts the club seats and press box, which cast a shadow over the south sideline, blocking out the sun and making it just a tiny bit cooler. The Vikings will have the sun on Sunday.
Will this make a difference? Well… no, almost certainly not. It’s going to be super cold either way, and depending on the direction of the wind, the features that create the shadows may also block out the winds. In the end, any difference will be negligible. But hey, a nice, if insignificant, bit of clever gamesmanship from the home team. You just knew they had days like this in mind when they made the call. That said, perhaps both teams would prefer to be playing in conditions more similar to these.
