Polar Bear Bowl: College Football Fans Are BEGGING For A Bowl Game To Take Place At This Remote Field In Alaska

College football fans love an obscure bowl game.

For college football fanatics, it’s still very much the “most wonderful time of the year.” Christmas may have come and gone, but we’re still in the thick of bowl season. The Pop-Tarts Bowl delivered (as it does every season), there was a bowl game that allowed for it’s victors to eat baked beans out of the trophy, and we’re just days away from the Trust & Will Holiday Bowl, where some lucky fans will get a chance to throw a football into a casket to win cash.

Yes, you read that right.

Even as all of the zany, entertaining bowl games play out all around, college football fans still yearn for more. One of the ways they are fantasizing about bowl season is wishing that an important, season-ending contest could take place at this scenic football field in Utqiaġvik, Alaska.

That right there is Cathy Parker Field, which is home to the Barrow High School Whalers: a high school that’s located in Utqiaġvik, Alaska. If you were wondering where that is in Alaska… just think the very top of the state. How fitting is it that the United States’ most northern point has a football field smacked right in the middle of it?

Barrow High School’s football field went viral earlier this year, and it’s currently going viral again thanks to wishful college football fans. It’s blue-turfed gridiron is nestled in between the Chukchi Sea and Imipuk Lake, providing breathtaking, all-around views. The phrase “sight lines” is thrown around a lot in sports… this might be the only field in America where the home team has the advantage just because the opposing team is too busy taking in the view.

Just look at this beauty:

I can’t imagine what it must feel like to take in a football game in that setting. Our founding fathers would be so proud… especially if beer was served to fans in attendance. And you might also notice that there aren’t any lights around the field. That, among other things, could cause some problems if you were truly going to try and host a bowl game there.

Utqiaġvik, Alaska experiences both long period of daylight and extended periods of darkness. From the middle of May to the beginning of August, the area home to the coolest high school football field in the country gets 24 hours of daylight. From August to November, the sun barely ever sets, making for incredibly long days of light. But then from late November through January, Utqiaġvik has what’s called their “Polar Night” – 64 straight days of absolute darkness.

So in other words… you’d need some lights installed on the field to make the chances of hosting a bowl game a little less of a long shot.

The other problem? This time of the year, Utqiagvik, Alaska experiences extremely cold temperatures (because of the no sunlight thing) that range from single digits to near -30 and below. In other words, the weather wouldn’t be conducive for hosting a football game during bowl season. However, you could very easily play a football game that a) has milder temperatures and b) goes on well after midnight in the earlier parts of the football season, when the sun doesn’t set in Utqiagvik.

The NCAA rule book even sights that a team could pick up an extra game and play it in Alaska under the right conditions:

“As long as an NCAA member from Alaska, Hawai’i, or Puerto Rico agrees to host the game, any FBS team is allowed to play a 13th regular season game in Utqiagvik, Alaska at any time. (NCAA D1 Manual, 17.12.6.2.1(f)).”

Maybe the “Polar Bear Bowl” that fans are clamoring for could kick off the college football season? Rather than conclude it?The post Polar Bear Bowl: College Football Fans Are BEGGING For A Bowl Game To Take Place At This Remote Field In Alaska first appeared on Whiskey Riff.