So far, we’ve heard nothing but glowing reports about TCF Bank Stadium, the venue for Monday night’s Vikings-Bears tilt. But that’s changing now that the players have gotten a look at the surface, which up until a few days ago was buried under a foot-and-a-half of snow.
The first negative review comes via Chris Kluwe, who offers this strongly-worded assessment of the TCF turf on Twitter:
"Serious time – All respect to the people that cleared the field and got it ready, you did an amazing job. That being said, it’s unplayable.The field is as hard as concrete an hour and a half after they took the tarp off, and anyone that hits their head is getting a concussion."
Kluwe follows this up by taking a shot at the NFL (not his first dig at the league’s player safety policy):
"I find it interesting that the NFL can claim an emphasis on player safety, and then tell us the field is fine. It’s beyond hypocritical."
In closing, Kluwe says:
"I can only hope, however unlikely, that no one gets catastrophically injured at the trainwreck that’s about to take place tomorrow night."
Oh. Good. Another Vikings mess.
Update: Kluwe’s comments got back to someone in authority either with the Vikings or the league, and now Kluwe has apparently been ordered to stop tweeting about the state of the TCF Bank Stadium turf:
"I’ve been asked not to tweet anymore about the field so as not to distract teammates (who were there) and I will honor that. Time for WoW."
For those not versed in geek-speak, “WoW” is the online game World of Warcraft. I’m told.
For what it’s worth, Visanthe Shiancoe also tweeted about the field and was much less negative. He did say there are “random patches of hard and slippery turf.” Well, as long as they’re only random…
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