New Vikings Stadium: Birders Still Squawking About Glass

Sep 28, 2014; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Construction progresses at the new Minnesota Vikings Stadium in downtown Minneapolis on the site of the former Metrodome. Mandatory Credit: Bruce Kluckhohn USA TODAY Sports

Feathered aviation enthusiasts are still up in arms about the glass that will be adorning the new Vikings stadium. Even though downtown Minneapolis is covered in glass, their concern is that the stadium is too close to the migratory patterns due to its proximity to the river. With apologies to Edgar Allen Poe, I imagine their complaints to be something like this:

"Once upon an afternoon dreary, Christian Ponder, out the door nearly,I imagined the Vikings a couple years from now,Teddy passing, fans clapping, suddenly there came a crashing,As of some birds violently smashing, crashing into my stadium doors.“Tis some fowls,” I muttered, “smashing at my stadium doors —Only this, and nothing more.”"

This feels like a non-story to me for a couple of reasons. The Vikings are not going to change the glass this late in the game. For one thing, glass covered in dots would ruin the most important aesthetic aspect of the stadium. The other reason is it would delay the project to the point that the stadium would not open until 2017, costing the Vikings up to $60 million dollars plus the headache of securing TCF Bank Stadium for one more season. For their part, the Vikings have agreed to work with 3M on a film that is said to not change the look of the glass but somehow dissuade the birds from crashing into it. I’m no ornithologist but if the team is working with a company with as many scientists at their disposal as 3M I am willing to take their word for it.