Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome

Last night, Stephen Colbert poked fun at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. Actually he called it the Minneapolis Metrodome if I remember correctly.

Anyway, there was a lot of snow in Minneapolis, as well as across the whole Midwest. That can be a headache, what with the shoveling and the plowing and the snowballs and things like that. But it was an especially big headache for the Metrodome and the Vikings. They were scheduled to play against the Giants on December 12. Unfortunately, the Metrodome roof ripped and then deflated from the weight of the snow.

It's unfortunate, but at least it wasn't during a game or other event when there might have been lots of people on the Mall of America Field. The game was postponed and eventually played in Detroit! The Giants won, but the Vikings came in at second place.

Anyway, the photo shows the roof of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in better days. The roof is intact and as a bonus, you can see the pre-game show by the University of Minnesota Marching Band (the Pride of Minnesota) before a Gopher Game. The roof is quite inflated. The lights and speakers are high above the field and there are no rips.

There's talk, (well there's always talk) of building a new stadium for the Vikings. Maybe it will happen, maybe not. But it got me to wondering, what will they do with this stadium? Will they abandon it? Will they build something else on the site? If you look at the photo, the top half of seating is above ground level, and the lower half is below ground level. Presumably when the stadium was built, lots of dirt was hauled away. Will they bring that dirt back? Perhaps the best thing would be that when another stadium is built, they just bring that dirt here. Even if the Vikings move to another state, they would need a stadium there, so the dirt could just be transported from that state to Minnesota. That makes sense.