The Diner 'Experiences' Buffalo
by Sam Monson
3/1/2009
Sunday 28th of December Week 17 of the 2008 NFL season Buffalo, NY.
 This was the day the Diner chose to take in a football game, to experience life in the stands of a Buffalo Bills game as they took on the New England Patriots. The Bills were hoping to bring some purpose to their own disappointing season by being the reason the Patriots failed to make the post-season as well.
The weather in the western New York state area had been unseasonably warm in the couple of days before the game, causing around two feet of snow to melt away. This was undoubtedly fate attempting to trick our small party of four into leaving a few extra layers at home. The Diner wasn't falling for that one though! Out of the house I stepped, with under armour head-to-toe, covered by jeans and a hoodie, all wrapped up in a wooly-lined suede jacket and a wooly hat, hand and foot warmers stuffed in my pockets. We would be prepared for cold, or so we thought...
The tone for the day was set by our driver (a necessary part of the trip to avoid being stuck in Buffalo traffic until sometime in Wild Card Weekend) who asked us First time going to the Bills?, and upon being answered with Yep, replied Me too! . Any way you cut it this was unlikely to be a good omen.
This trend continued when we experimented with the foot warmers. Covered in warnings about proper use and directions to insert in the shoe 'IMMEDIATELY' after breaking the seal, we were expecting some kind of serious heat to emanate from these bad boys. Not so much. The best they managed was a faint hint of warmth at one point. Kind of like a hot water bottle the morning after. Other than that you'd never know you even had them in.
We arrived at Ralph Wilson Stadium in reasonable time, but when the driver began to dive on past the stadium we decided that the best idea was for us to hop out and allow him to try and work his way through his printed directions and locate the parking lot on his own we would find him after the game.
The weather conditions in Buffalo weren't looking great if you were a fan of putting the ball in the air, largely because the air in question was gusting at 70mph, causing the goalposts to lean, swing and swivel in their fixings. The temperature had dropped to slightly above freezing and was supposed to 'plummet' still further at half-time. To make matters worse, those winds were gusting from the open end of the stadium. We found our seats before the players had finished their warm-ups. We were in the last 4 seats close to the top of the 300 level at the open end of the stadium otherwise known as 'inside the eye of the Hurricane'.
 The wind was so strong that Matt Cassell was struggling to throw 15 yard warm-up passes to Randy Moss. No routes being run, nothing to complicate things, just couldn't hit a 6'4 guy from 15 yards away.
The game began like you would expect given the wind that was blowing: Buffalo ran the ball 15 times to their lone pass attempt in the first few series. The Patriots weren't faring much better, attempting only a couple of passes to the FB in the flat after their runs had been stopped short. They ended the game having put it in the air only 8 times. It wasn't just the passing game that the wind affected either, kicking was a bizarre lottery. Ryan Lindell saw a short chip shot caught by a gut of wind and swerve violently right of the goal-posts like the worst sliced tee shot you've ever seen. Brian Moorman's first punt went for just 13 yards as it was wrenched by the wind out of bounds. Later in the game Steven Gostkowski nearly saw an extra point attempt fall short of the posts when it was captured by a particularly strong blast of wind. The ball sailed up as normal, then stopped moving forward as it hit a wall of wind before dropping just over the posts.
As the game was being stifled by the conditions, we were suffering from the effects of the seating, namely a long metal bench. Contrary to what your mind believes is logical, no amount of sitting on it in that kind of temperature will make it any warmer, and it only serves to suck the heat and energy out of everybody unfortunate enough to have parked themselves on it without the buffer of any kind of insulation.
This led to large sections of the crowd standing at any and all opportunity.
Key goal-line play stand up and yell!
Big run stand up and cheer
3rd down to hell with it, stand up and yell...at least you're not on that damn seat!!
At the 2 minute warning we decided to be smart and beat the crowd to the food and the mens room. Naturally this was when the game decided to get a little interesting. As it turns out did the weather. The 'inside' of Ralph Wilson stadium up at the 300 level is actually some kind of open ended tunnel, with beer stalls, food windows and mini-merchandise stands all along the length of the stadium. This place could quite easily be rented by Formula 1 teams to save them the cost of building their own wind tunnels.
 After buying some of the Buffalo Bills seat cushions we had noticed the people who had actually sat on the sub-zero metal before had brought with them, we attempted to eat our pizza slices inside the very centre of Hurricane Katrina, which had somehow come back to life inside the 300 level of Ralph Wilson Stadium. Since it hadn't been quite destructive enough the last time around, it had added sub-zero temperatures to its already fearsome nature.
After a few minutes cowering behind a small nook in the wall it was decided that we should leg it back outside to escape the worst of the weather the outside couldn't possibly be as cold or as windy as inside. Pizza that was scalding hot seconds before was ice cold by the time it hit your stomach. When moving around I was actually securing my slice by firmly clamping it between my teeth. Things were flying by our heads that has no business being airborne.
Thankfully we were right, outside was positively balmy in comparison, and the seat cushions made a world of difference, allowing us to concentrate on wrapping hoods and hats together around our heads to expose as little bare skin to the biting wind as physically possible.
I'm led to believe that at this point a football game started up again, but I think I was trying too hard to find my happy, warm place to notice.
The Buffalo Bills eventually went down 13-0, putting an end to a dismal season that started so promisingly. The Patriots missed the playoffs despite winning, and finished their season at 11-5.
My core temperature has still not returned to normal.
NFL Football, in Buffalo, in December. And it seemed like such a good idea at the time.
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