IT IS NOT just the hopes of Wisconsin that the Green Bay Packers will carry with them into Texas Stadium tomorrow. For the sport's traditionalists, not to mention its sentimentalists, their appearance in the NFC Championship game gives what promises to be an enthralling encounter with the Dallas Cowboys a special poignancy.
Unlike most of their NFL brethren, the Packers' history dates back to the origins of the professional game. Formed in 1919, they began as the works team for the Indian Packing Company of Green Bay and, to further set them apart, have played in the same town, under the same name, ever since.
In a sport, perhaps a nation, where change is a constant, such continuity is accorded a special reverence, and there will be no shortage of armchair enthusiasts rooting for the green and yellow come kick off time tomorrow.
Despite dominating the 30s and the 60s, the Packers appearance in what is effectively a Super Bowl semi final is a surprise. The smallest town to sustain a professional franchise, Green Bay has grown accustomed in the last two decades to seeing its team locked in the basement of the NFC Central.
Only in the last couple of years, under the daring stewardship of the head coach Mike Holmgren, have the Packers and their fanatical fans been able to aspire to anything like their former glories. Holmgren, who was the offensive co ordinator in San Francisco, brought the West Coast offence with him, and has successfully established it in the harsher climes of the Great Lakes.
The key to doing so has been the performances of Brett Favre. There was a time when Favre was regarded as a quarterback who could lose you games. In the last couple of seasons he has been winning plenty of them.
Favre's devastating form this season presents the biggest threat to a Cowboy side that has a formidable recent record against the Packers, and has a better balanced attack which includes the phenomenal rushing skills of Emmitt Smith.
The Packers will be looking to their brilliant defensive end Reggie White to disrupt that offence.
White is the pastor of a church in Knoxville, Tennessee. On Monday it was burned to the ground, with racist slogans daubed on the back door. "The only thing I'm upset about is maybe our police department is not taking this thing serious enough," White said.
In the AFC Championship showdown between Indianapolis and Pittsburg the Colts will have, key tailback Marshall Faulk missing. Faulk, who was having arthroscopic surgery to remove loose cartilage from his left knee yesterday, accounted for nearly 32 per cent of his team's offence - in 1995, despite being limited by the knee injury for the last three weeks.
