When coach Lombardi's Packers took on Coach Landry's Dallas Cowboys in one of the most memorable games ever, this is what the NFL championship game in Green Bay looked like in 1967: it was 12 degrees below zero and the wind was blowing at between 14 and 35 miles per hour, making it minus-49 with the wind chill.

     The Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys met on the coldest New Year's Eve ever recorded in upper Wisconsin, and the weather didn't just define the game - it relegated two great teams, a pair of legendary coaches, and the championship of the National Football League to a sidelight.

     The previous day had been mild for Green Bay - 19 degress - but overnight the temperature dropped 32 degrees. The Packers had recently put a new heating system in place - a series of buried, 750,000-volt coils meant to thaw the icy tundra of Lambeau Field - and it was working beautifully on December 30, but on game day the new heating coils had been overwhelmed by the Arctic conditions, and the playing surface was as smooth and hard as an ice rink.

     Dan Reeves, then a halfback for the Cowboys, thought that Commissioner Pete Rozelle would postpone the game, but he didn't. The game was played with no whistles; the little wooden balls had frozen inside the official's whistles. Throwing and catching the football became highly problematic, while the act of running lateral routes became virtually impossible. Still, most of the players found a way to respond, and Lombardi's Packers (enjoying their last hurrah) and Landry's Cowboys (on the verge of greatness) played an entertaining football game. They ran and tackled and blocked, and the Packers jumped to a 14-0 lead on 2 touchdown passes from Bart Starr to Boyd Dowler.

     But the 'Boys rallied, turning the momentum in their favor when defensive end George Andrie picked up Starr's fumble and skated 7 yards for a touchdown. Shortly after that, Danny Villanueva kicked a short field goal, and at the half it was 14-10, Green Bay.

     The Cowboys jumped to a 17-14 lead after Reeves, who had been a quarterback at South Carolina, threw a 50-yard touchdown pass to Lance Rentzel on the first play of the fourth quarter. With 4:50 left, the Packers took over on their own 32-yard line. Quarterback Bart Starr moved the Packers 67 yards to the 1 when he took the team's final timeout with 16 seconds left, and fourth down looming.

     Watching film the week before the game, the Packers had noticed that the Cowboys' other defensive tackle, Jethro Pugh, tended to rise out of his stance earlier than Lilly. They felt they could wedge him, steamroller him off the line. Starr knew the blocking scheme was good, but the runners were having trouble even making it to the line of scrimmage. So he made a proposal: He would call the wedge, but keep the ball himself and plunge into the gap.

     It was arguably a terrible play call - by rejecting a game-tying field goal attempt from inside of 20 yards and calling for a quarterback sneak, Starr was asking to risk everything on a single sneak. Of course,since they were playing on an ice rink, a field goal was anything but certain.  Lombardi's answer has attained mythic status in Green Bay: "Run it, and let's get the hell out of here."

     Starr, behind blocks by guard Jerry Kramer and center Ken Bowman, got into the end zone - just barely - and cemented Lombardi's reputation as a play-call genius. The Packers won 21-17 and become the first team in the 47-year history of the NFL to win three consecutive league championships.