Project Profiles – Lambeau Field - Green Bay, Wisconsin

"Frozen Tundra" is History: Lambeau Field Gets Major Renovation with I-40 Series Rotors

Picture Laurel without Hardy, Minneapolis without St. Paul, macaroni without cheese. Now picture Green Bay's legendary Lambeau Field without its most noteworthy feature - the "frozen tundra."

Of course, the tundra wasn't really tundra at all. It was simply turfgrass...but no one could convince those who played on it. Conditions in a Green Bay winter were so extreme the turf at Lambeau seemed like it was brought in from somewhere in the Arctic. The infamous 1967 NFL Championship game against the Dallas Cowboys, played in sub-zero weather and dubbed the "Ice Bowl" because of the frigid conditions, forever placed the term "frozen tundra" into NFL lore.

A Quick Fix

But last year, the final straw came at Lambeau. In a divisional playoff against the San Francisco 49ers, a constant downpour turned the game into a swampfest. The Packers won the game and with it the honor of hosting the championship against the Carolina Panthers the following week. One problem, however: the field was a mess, virtually destroyed and deemed unplayable. What to do was a no-brainer for Todd Edlebeck, Lambeau grounds supervisor. Tear it all out and resod.

More than 80,000 feet of replacement grass was on the way from Virginia the next day. But, then it got tricky - as the old turf was being torn out, snow arrived, temperatures dropped to 2 degrees, and cables and fuel lines froze. "It made me a little nervous," said Edlebeck, who, along with round-the-clock volunteers, pulled off a small miracle getting the new sod in place for the playoff.

A 21st Century Field

Today, the famous perma-frost of Lambeau is, like the late coach Vince Lombardi, another glorious ghost. The old sod was literally packed up in "Frozen Tundra" boxes and sold to fans to help finance a major renovation. Lambeau now has new turf plus a high-tech irrigation system supplied by Century Rain Aid that makes it one of the most playable in the world on a year-round basis. NFL officials call it a prototype and are considering new league standards based on its design - Hunter I-42 rotors, state of the art drainage, radiant heating, gravel, sand peat and a durable new natural turf product called SportGrass.

A 100% natural grass playing surface that has a modified sand-filled synthetic turf base, SportGrass has the look, feel and playability of natural grass, and with its woven mesh backing, the durability and wear-resistance of synthetic turf. The NFL calls it "the field of the future."

As for the choice of I-42s, that had the enthusiastic support of the entire installation team. "We've used Hunter for years on commercial jobs and sports fields," said Steve Hutchison, the contractor who directed the 60-day installation process. "So when Bill Paprocki of SportGrass insisted on Hunter I-42s - which they had used on the new field for the Baltimore Ravens - I was the first to agree."

Why I-42s?

"The I-42's high-speed rotation is one of the product's great advantages," said Paprocki. "It runs two rotations in two minutes, perfect for syringing fields. In warm weather we typically run each zone three times a day at 2 to 3 minutes per cycle, and SportGrass thrives. Even in windy areas, theI-42s do a great job of water distribution. Plus, the built-in rubber cover and small surface diameter are ideal for player safety and the positive pop-downs work well in sand-based systems."

Hutchison noted that Lambeau Field presented a great deal of quirkiness, yet he and his team agreed it was one of the most satisfying jobs they had ever worked on. "We've never seen anything like it. The original field was built in 1957, with a clay floor and field so rigorously compacted it was hard as bedrock. The entire stadium, bleachers and all, drained to the field and sod had been changed out a million times."

Now, thanks to the work of Hutchison's crew, SportGrass, Century Rain Aid and Hunter, this latest change should be the final one ever needed. And, while the Packers and their fans may have lost the home-field advantage that the frozen tundra used to provide, they now have a field that's the standard by which those of all their rivals will be measured.