Joe Soucheray
Joe Soucheray


I am hopelessly put in mind of Sodom and Gomorrah, but then I am also entirely convinced that we are going to spend a billion dollars -- that we don't have -- to accommodate a game that will soon be transformed into a cross between "Dancing With the Stars" and "Swamp People." To keep the players from killing each other, don't you see?

In any event, in a kind of weird performance-art dream, Vikings fans with face paint and Helga braids found themselves in the Guthrie Theater on Monday night, May 13, for the unveiling of the architectural rendering of the new stadium. There was a lot of oohing and ahhing and cheering, for there is no doubt that the thing is spectacular, right up there with the Sydney Opera House or a megachurch if Zygi Wilf were a preacher.



The prow of a ship was mentioned, and I must admit I see that. I see a schooner if I squint and suspend reality. I see a large glass ship, which compels in me only the practical again: Why?

And I was prepared to maybe call somebody at the New Yorker, an art critic or an architectural savant, but then I read what Bud Grant had to say and everything changed.

"I'm sold," Grant said.

Grant is sold. Then so am I. I have to be. Grant gave the Vikings their image. Grant made them stand at attention during the national anthem. Grant didn't allow heaters on the sideline, so that a generation of us grew up with the Vikings seen through the frosty exhaust of exhaled breath. Grant ... is sold?

Grant said that he used to be an advocate for outdoor football, but "not anymore."

In a candid moment, when the Metrodome was getting built and the team had talking points to encourage its development, Grant told me that he hated the idea of going indoors, but that he was, after all, an employee and he was going indoors.

What a sea change to hear him now overwhelmed at the grandiosity of the new place. I have no reason to doubt his sincerity. He no longer has a terribly significant vested interest. He is speaking his mind, and that makes the new ballpark a go.

If the Old Trapper approves of an ethylene tetrafluoroethylene roof and seven layers of pinball wizardry, then so do we. We have no choice. But we'd certainly sleep better if more people started playing electronic bingo.
