The memory that will stick with me most about the Metrodome, is the 20 minutes that followed a football game between Iowa and Minnesota. The game was played in November of 2002 under our ugly bubble.
The outcome was as figured, with the Hawkeyes — who had one of their better teams in years — blasting the annually struggling Gophers. Iowa won 45-21, clinching a share of the Big Ten Conference title en route.
Iowa's fans went wild afterward, dropping one by one in their yellow and black shirts to the Metrodome turf. Announcements from the public address man for them to stay off the field were constant, but they kept dropping from the stands anyway.
Then things really went really wild, with the Iowa fan mob heading toward one of the Metrodome goal posts, with one thing in mind — to take their symbolic prize to the ground.
The P.A. man began promising arrests upon seeing this, his voice echoing over the stadium. Security guards suddenly became enforcers, many of them seemingly taking out their frustrations for all the Gophers missed tackles against Iowa, by tackling one goal-post bound Hawkeyes fan after another. At least one Minnesota sports writer admitted to also taking satisfaction in this.
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Still, the Iowa mob went undeterred. Once they'd used their collective weight to finally unhinge the goal post, they took their long, heavy prize and hauled it around the stadium.
Minnesota fans, at least those who hung around for this post-game show, were left to wonder one thing: How do you end up with a team this good, one that whips its fans into this state of delirium. Eleven years later, we're still wondering.
