Cooler but still well above normal this week

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      ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) - Football fans whose flights had been
canceled struggled Saturday to get to Dallas for Sunday's big game,
while those already in town for the Super Bowl were contending with
temperatures and snow typical of Pittsburgh and Green Bay but
unusual in Texas.


      A fresh blast of snow and ice canceled hundreds of flights
Friday, transformed highways into ribbons of white and caused
dangerous sheets of ice to fall from Cowboys Stadium, sending at
least six people to the hospital. It was enough to turn the biggest
week in American sports into a Super Mess.
    


  The NFL said those hurt by the falling ice included private
contractors it hired to prepare the stadium for the game. One man
was hit in the head, another in the shoulder. None of the injuries
was considered life-threatening.


      Alison Crombie, a spokeswoman for Getty Images, said Saturday
one of its photographers, Win McNamee, also was hurt. He was flying
home and would be assessed by his doctor there, she said.


      Most stadium entrances were closed as a precaution. Officials
raised the temperature inside the arena in an attempt to melt
remaining ice.


      The Dallas-Fort Worth area received as much as 5 inches of snow
overnight - nearly twice its annual average - and by Friday morning
downtown Dallas hotels were selling ski hats and scarves alongside
cowboy hats. A winter storm warning was issued for suburban
Arlington, home of the $1.3 billion stadium where the Pittsburgh
Steelers and the Green Bay Packers are to play Sunday.


      "It looks like, 'Oh, no, I'm back in Canada,'" said Sammy
Sandu, a 32-year-old property developer from Kelowna, British
Columbia. "It's just pouring down snow. Are we still at home, or
have we left? We didn't drink that much last night, did we?"
    


  Forecasters expected game day to be mostly sunny, with highs in
the 40s, which would probably not be warm enough to melt all the
snow and ice.


      Sandu made it to Dallas with his father Thursday, but other
members of their party weren't so lucky. His brother still hoped to
arrive from Miami in time for the game, but a friend abandoned the
trip after a flight from Vancouver was canceled.
    

  Like much of the region, airlines were struggling to recover
from a massive blizzard earlier in the week that brought up to 2
feet of snow and bitter cold temperatures to as much as half the
nation.


      More than 300 arriving flights were canceled at Dallas-Fort
Worth Airport, a hub for American Airlines. The city's smaller
airport, Love Field, was closed before dawn because of snow on the
runways, but it reopened by noon. Love is home to Southwest
Airlines.


      Andy Williams, a 51-year-old attorney from Grafton, Wis., said
he was frustrated to find his American flight from Milwaukee
delayed for about five hours. He was already planning ahead for the
worst-case scenario.
    

  "If this flight gets canceled, I'll start driving down
tonight," he said. "Clearly it's not my first choice but, at
least you're in control of your own destiny at that point."

  The winter weather wasn't expected to faze the teams competing
in the real event, nor their hardy fans, who are used to cooler
climes. The temperature in Dallas on Friday stood at 20 - the same
as Pittsburgh. Green Bay was slightly colder at 17.


      "We deal with it very well back home," Steelers fan Alex Sax
said on his way the NFL Experience fan festival in Dallas. "Here,
they don't know how to deal with it. There's no plows. No salt
trucks. When we drove from airport, we were the only car on the
road."


      Asked if the weather could affect future Super Bowl bids, NFL
Commissioner Roger Goodell said the conditions this year have been unusual. 
      

"We've had a winter to remember. Some would say to forget,"
Goodell said. "It's going to be a great weekend for us, and the
weather's getting better."

      The Super Bowl is scheduled to be played in Indianapolis next
year and in the open-air New Meadowlands stadium in New Jersey in
2014.


Some Packers fans at Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee found
themselves delayed but not completely downhearted.
      

James Jennings, 78, was scheduled to fly out of Milwaukee with
his 44-year-old son. They were taking a charter flight as part of a
package for which they paid a total of $25,000.


      Jennings, a criminal lawyer from Norridge, Ill., said he had
absolutely no doubt that the flight would leave as scheduled.
    

  "At $12,500 a ticket, are you kidding me? They'd get Evel
Knievel to fly that thing."


      Associated Press writers Danny Robbins, Linda Stewart Ball,
Jamie Stengle and Paul Newberry in Dallas and videographer Rich
Matthews in Arlington, Texas, contributed to this report.
      
      
      

Gallery

Weather and Climate News

Football fans whose flights had been
canceled struggled Saturday to get to Dallas for Sunday's big game,
while those already in town for the Super Bowl were contending with
temperatures and snow typical of Pittsburgh and Green Bay but
unusual in Texas.

Snow, cold make Dallas feel more like Green Bay

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