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Next game: Sunday, January 20
NFC Championship vs. NY Giants
Countdown to Gameday at 12:00 p.m. on Newsradio 620 WTMJ

"60 from Super" Coverage:
• How Cold is Too Cold for the NFL?
• Brett vs. Eli
• Favre Can't Learn Much From Week 2
• Grant's Not Vengeful
• Woodson Came Around
• Blackmon's Back?
• Lambeau's Busy
• Mayors Bet Cheese, Cheesecake
• No Seinfeld for Manning, Local Fans Miffed
• Rattling Manning
• Giants' Injuries
• Naming Baby Brett
• The REALLY Frozen Tundra
• Green Bay's Cold History
• NFC Championship Continuing Coverage Archive

RACINE, WIs. (AP) -- Not even a shredded playoff ticket will stop the Rev. Walter Hermanns from getting to Lambeau Field Sunday to watch the Green Bay Packers.

Hermanns, who has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair, was getting some help from friend Andrew Duncan last Friday when he asked Duncan to take care of the stack of papers left in a bin for shredding.

When Duncan got to four Packers tickets, bundled together with a rubber band, he took off the band, put one in the shredder and then stopped short.

"Something rang a bell and he said 'Are you sure you want to shred these?' " Hermanns said.

Too late. One ticket was in shreds.

Realizing what happened, they emptied the shredder, collected pieces of the ticket and put them in a plastic bag.

Hermanns' wife, Lynn Helmke, admits putting the tickets in the bin. She too is a Packers fan but misunderstood the significance of the Dallas Cowboys winning home-field advantage for the playoffs.

"She didn't realize the possibility -- the slim possibility -- that Dallas would lose," Hermanns said.

When the Cowboys lost to the New York Giants last Sunday, the Giants advanced to this Sunday's game in Green Bay for the National Football Conference championship.

As for the ticket, a call to the Packers' ticket office remedied the situation, but not before some explaining.

"It almost sounded like they had heard crazy stories like this before," he said.

But it helped that he purchased the tickets with a credit card, still had three remaining tickets and got the tickets through a special lottery for handicapped-accessible seats.

With bitter cold expected, Hermanns said he'll wear a borrowed snowmobile suit when he goes to the game with another friend, his teenage daughter and her boyfriend.

His wife isn't going.

"She's elected to watch the game in comfort and warmth," he said.

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Information from: The Journal Times, http://www.journaltimes.com

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)