Chicago's sports teams are superior to those of Minnesota's. This has been proven time and time again on the playing field, ice, court and any other surface where sporting competitions between the two states are held. But now, the dominance over Minnesota sports goes beyond the games—Chicago is winning the war inside the heads of those in the Minnesota Vikings organization.
US Bank Stadium, the new home for the Bears' NFC North rivals in Minnesota, has been under construction since December of 2013 and is scheduled to open in time for the upcoming NFL season. However, it wasn't until about a week ago that the Vikings raised objections about their shiny new stadium (which is a death trap for birds, by the way) being located on a street called Chicago Avenue. The team is so rattled by the prospect of having to play on Chicago Avenue that it presented a proposal to Minneapolis City Hall proposing that the street be renamed "Vikings Way." The city's planning commission heard these desperate cries and was so sympathetic to the Vikings' plight that they told the team, in a unanimous vote, to get lost.
Minneapolis' rejection of the Vikings' proposal is hilarious on a number of levels, not the least of which is that the team's former home of 30-plus years, the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, was also located on Chicago Avenue. Most of all, nobody outside of people in Minnesota or the brave souls who dare make the trek to Minneapolis to see a football game would have ever known that the stadium was situated on a street named after the a city that hosts one of the team's division rival. Yet here we are, with the Vikings finding themselves in an amusing PR gaffe that makes them look as insecure as a teenager at a homecoming dance. The Bears may have been swept by the Vikings in the season series last season, but they can count this as a monumental mental victory.
The Vikings can name the street whatever they want, but they'll always be the team that missed a trip to the Super Bowl by a single field goal:
