Pack-Giants rivalry frozen in time and space

It was the Packers against the Giants, with everything on the line. But ask anyone who was in attendance that day and his or her most vivid memory inevitably is the numbing, grinding, relentless cold.

"Brutal,'' said Robert Andino, who recalled the first time the frigid air slammed into his face as he walked toward the stadium. "I was like, 'Oh, my God.' Incredible.''

Harry Larson was there, too, with his fiancee, Ulla, a Swede attending her first American football game.

"She grew up skiing in the north of Sweden,'' Harry said. "By halftime, she was crying. She wanted to go home.''

The famously frozen NFC Championship Game of Jan. 20, 2008? Well, that was a cold day, too, but Andino and Larson weren't at Lambeau Field for it.

They were at Yankee Stadium on Dec. 30, 1962, when the same teams met in the NFL Championship Game.

Moral of our little story: When it comes to rivalries as ancient as the one that will be renewed at Lambeau Sunday, there is nothing new under the sun. Or the midwinter dark, as the case may be.

The Giants' divisional-round playoff game against the Packers comes with a rich, long back story that includes five NFL Championship Games and many of the best players in the sport's history.

The teams never met during the Giants' first three seasons, from 1925-27, which was a shame because they finished first and second in '27, before there was a championship game.

The Giants won their first title on the strength of an 11-1-1 finish. The Packers went 7-2-1.

They finally played in Green Bay on Oct. 7, 1928, a 6-0 victory for the Giants. Ten years later, they played in the championship game, the first of three such meetings in seven seasons.

The Giants won, 23-16, at the Polo Grounds and earned a forever place in the heart of the late co-owner Wellington Mara. He was 22, and he said that was his favorite team of all, because the players were his contemporaries and friends.

Among them was a fellow Fordham alum five years his senior, Ed Danowski, who threw two touchdown passes in the '38 final to become the first -- and still only -- man to quarterback the Giants in two championship game victories.

Danowski, who played at Riverhead High School, died in 1997, but his stories live on through his family, including his son John, now the lacrosse coach at Duke.

John, 57, said the family had a newspaper scrapbook from those 1930s seasons that was so detailed, he felt as if he knew those teams even though they played long before he was born.

The Packers avenged the '38 loss by beating the Giants, 27-0, in 1939 in Milwaukee, then won again, 14-7, at the Polo Grounds in '44. It would be their last playoff meeting until the Packers won the '61 final in Green Bay, 37-0, setting up a rematch the Giants were determined to win.

"This was going to be revenge time,'' said Andino, 65.

It was not to be.

Andino was sitting in Section 9 behind the Yankees' dugout and watching closely through his binoculars as the Giants warmed up. He was alarmed by what he saw from quarterback Y.A. Tittle.

"As soon as the ball left his hand, it was flip-flopping; I said, 'We're going to have issues today,' '' Andino said.

Tittle himself later would recall one pass getting caught by the wind and heading back in his direction. The temperature at kickoff was 13 degrees, with winds up to 40 miles per hour.

Larson, 77, recalled the dirt from the Yankees' infield swirling everywhere. "I don't how they could play with all the dust going in their eyes,'' he said.

Jim Taylor ran 31 times for 85 brutal yards and a touchdown -- and landed in the hospital. Jerry Kramer kicked three field goals. The Giants scored only after recovering a blocked punt in the end zone and lost, 16-7.

It was a sweet victory for Packers coach Vince Lombardi, another Fordham man and an assistant with the Giants from 1954-58.

Lombardi was only one example of the ties between the franchises. Tom Coughlin, who coached the Giants to their seventh NFL title four years ago, was an assistant for the Packers in 1986 and '87.

Still, Harry Larson said as good as the Packers were, he never considered them a true rival because they never were in the Giants' division.

"It was like they were foreigners when they came in to play,'' he said. "Bart Starr was about the only person we knew, aside from [Paul] Hornung.''

By the way, Harry and Ulla's relationship survived that awkward halftime moment in the Bronx nearly 50 years ago.

"I said to her, 'You have to stay; I never leave Giants games, period,' '' he recalled.

She did. Afterward, they walked home to her uncle's Bronx apartment. Seven months later, they wed. They still are together.

Andino managed to cup his frozen hands after the game to catch Andy Robustelli's chin strap when the defensive end tossed it to him and said, "Here kid, good luck.'' He still has it, wrapped in plastic. And he still has Giants season tickets.

Ed Danowski remained a Giant for life. John recalled as a child the thrill of receiving Christmas cards from stars of his father's era such as Mel Hein, Tuffy Leemans and Hank Soar. And he recalled his father proudly using the season tickets the Giants provided him.

John is just old enough to remember listening to the '62 title game on the radio. His father wasn't home, though. He was with John's older brother at Yankee Stadium rooting, as always, for the Giants.