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Super Bowl XLV!


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Ice falls off Cowboy Stadium roof injuring 6...

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-winterweather

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 six people to the hospital. It was enough to turn the biggest week in American sports into a Super Mess.

The injured included private contractors the NFL hired to prepare the stadium for the game, authorities said. 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.

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 exceptional.

“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.

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.

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Pouncey definitely out for game tomorrow...

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-superbowl-steelers

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP)—Maurkice Pouncey’s(notes) Super Bowl dreams are officially over.

The Pittsburgh Steelers placed the Pro Bowl rookie center on injured reserve Saturday, a day after ruling him out for Sunday’s game against the Green Bay Packers with a high left ankle sprain. Center-guard Dorian Brooks(notes) was signed from the practice squad to take Pouncey’s roster spot.

Pouncey was injured in the AFC championship game against the New York Jets nearly two weeks ago and was unable to practice since.

Backup Doug Legursky(notes) will make his first NFL career start at center Sunday in Pouncey’s place. Signed as an undrafted free agent out of Marshall in 2008, Legursky started four games at guard earlier this season.

The Steelers, going for their seventh Super Bowl title, also completed their final practice session at TCU’s indoor facility. According to a pool report distributed to the media, it was a relaxed walkthrough in front of family members and other guests, including Hall of Famers John Stallworth and Mel Blount, who each won four rings with Pittsburgh.

A relaxed and playful quarterback Ben Roethlisberger(notes) practiced while wearing the No. 99 jersey of teammate Brett Keisel(notes), whose overgrown beard was a popular topic of discussion this week.

Coach Mike Tomlin wanted family members at the walkthrough to help the players stay focused on the night before the Super Bowl, repeating a strategy he used two years ago when the Steelers won their last title.

“Nothing else was normal,” Tomlin said after the nearly 45-minute session. “But there’s not a lot about this week that is (normal), so we’re not going to fight against it. We’re going to embrace it.”

The players also gathered at midfield and took team and family photos.

“It’s twofold,” Tomlin said. “We want to honor them, of course, because their love and support is the reason why these men are here. But also we use them to a degree because we had to get some work done today and nothing outside of the white lines was normal. … This is a mock game for us. It represented just that. It was unique in terms of the people that were outside the field, but the work we got done inside the white lines was very normal for a Saturday.”

The Steelers also had a special guest watching practice in 16-year-old Randy Stephens of Wheeling, W.V., who received a gift from the Make-A-Wish Foundation to attend the Super Bowl at Cowboys Stadium. Roethlisberger, Hines Ward(notes) and Casey Hampton(notes) posed for pictures with Stephens and signed a football for him.

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