“The Minneapolis-St. Paul region serves as a unique host for the Super Bowl for a couple of reasons. Let’s start with the weather — it is absolutely brutal.” 

Anna Orso, Philadelphia Inquirer

A lot of money is pouring into the Twin Cities this week, spilling from the pockets of tens of thousands of football fans, hundreds of celebrities and media members — like Orso — numbering in the thousands. Along with that financial windfall, there’s a longer-term effect: the lasting image of Minnesota being formed in the minds of visitors and of the audience to those endless news stories being produced in the lead-up to Super Bowl LII.

“We’re ready to make a great first impression,” Eric Dayton, a Minneapolis businessman and son of Gov. Mark Dayton, told Orso. “And if someone has an outdated perception, this is a chance to refresh that.”

Visit Mankato President Anna Thill, though, hesitates when asked if Minnesota’s image as a tourist destination is genuinely enhanced when the eyes of the world are focused on the state in late January and early February.

“We’re so much more than this cold little tundra that people think about when they think about Minnesota,” Thill said.

As Thill has experienced first-hand, a segment of the American population sincerely believes that Minnesota is snow-covered and frigid the year-round.

“We do recreate on our lakes in bathing suits, not just on the ice,” she said.

Dispatches from the frontier

“It used to be that the Super Bowl was held somewhere warm and fun, like Miami or New Orleans.”

Mark Shanahan, Boston Globe

More than 160 million people are likely to watch at least part of Sunday’s TV broadcast of the championship game between the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots. With the 52nd Super Bowl expected to be the coldest ever (at least, outside the temperature-controlled U.S. Bank Stadium), there will be inevitable images of a snow-blanketed landscape, heavily bundled fans and wintertime recreation.

There’s already been plenty of media coverage of the weather, including more than a few first-person accounts. A diary of the week written by Orso, a self-described “big baby when it comes to being cold,” was typical.

“I walked around the Nicollet Mall area for about an hour and froze my tush off …,” she told Inquirer readers on Thursday, a day after she’d described the Minneapolis skyway system as “a fantastic thing, because it means you don’t have to actually walk outside.”

Tourism leaders decided to eschew any defensiveness about the weather, adopting a “Bold North” slogan. Thill, who served on the Super Bowl Host Committee, supports the attempt to show that Minnesotans don’t hide under their comforters all winter long.

“It’s really an opportunity to show that even though it’s cold, there’s a robustness,” she said. “… We don’t let the winter slow us down.”

A warming trend

“Minnesotans have completely debunked the rumor us southerners thought was true of people from the north — that they’re not as nice as us. Everybody has been great. I wish you’d turn up the heat a little bit, though.” 

Singer Justin Timberlake

“The best hospitality, the nicest people ever.” 

celebrity Jenny McCarthy to WCCO-TV

The “Crew 52” army — 10,000 smiling volunteers who are everywhere in the Twin Cities this week — have been a major success story in Minnesota’s image-making effort.

“Just random people come up to me and say, ‘Wow, everybody’s so friendly here,'” said Pam Krahmer, a Crew 52 volunteer from North Mankato. “I say, ‘We have a name for that — Minnesota Nice.'”

It’s not just the volunteers. A Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office tactical response team, stationed on Nicollet Mall in full gear, spent much of its time smiling for selfies with visitors. Paul Quin, who spent his first 37 years in Plymouth, Massachusetts, before moving to Burnsville, put on his Patriots jersey and went to the Mall of America Thursday to greet New Englanders and Philadelphians alike.

“I’ve made so many friends,” Quin said.

A view from South Jersey

“We were a little apprehensive because it is Minnesota. But it’s been unbelievable — the town, the people. It’s been fantastic. All the ice sculptures. Your skyway system is unbelievable.”

retired mail carrier Stan Grieco

If Explore Minnesota, the state’s tourism bureau, needs any spokespeople, they might want to look up Stan and Anita Grieco of Williamstown, New Jersey. The Eagles season-ticket-holders were having an early supper at the Mall of America after a busy couple of days in the Twin Cities when they agreed to share their impressions of a February vacation to Minnesota.

“It’s been awesome here,” Anita said. “The people here … .”

“Your Crew 52 workers are fantastic,” Stan finished.

Then he pulled out his phone, showing photos of the couple’s good luck charm — a Santa doll wearing a green hat with the Eagles logo that they call “The Little Man.” He’s been accompanying them to games, and he made the trip to Minnesota. Vikings fans have posed with the retired couple and with “The Little Man,” who was also propped on ice sculptures by a Crew 52 worker for more photos.

“We spent all day yesterday at Nicollet Mall,” Anita said.

“We were at the Ice Palace in Rice Park,” Stan added, noting that skyways and tunnels got them right to the edge of the St. Paul park.

And it appears the Griecos favor the Twin Cities’ road system to the one back home.

“If you stay on the highways, it’s just fantastic,” Anita said. “You can go anywhere on the highways.” 

Both retired mail carriers, the Griecos said they typically spend their winters inside.

“We just sit in our bay window and wave at the mail carrier when she goes by,” Stan said.

So he wasn’t sure about following his Eagles to Super Bowl 52 as he did when they played in the championship game in New Orleans in 1980 and in Jacksonville in 2005. No regrets, however.

“We just feel like Minnesota opened their arms up to us,” Anita said.

Come on in, stay a while

“The people are always exceptionally kind. And the second thing I always find impressive is how hardy the people of Minnesota must be to endure this.” 

NBC news anchor Craig Melvin, speaking to KBJR-TV

Thill, who was a Crew 52 volunteer along with serving on the Super Bowl Host Committee, is not surprised that the people of Minnesota have made a better impression than the air temperature. 

“Yeah, we’re a little bit colder, but we have warm hearts,” she said. “We have a strong work ethic and integrity, and ‘Minnesota Nice’ shines through at every turn.”

The images coming out of Minnesota this week might not make the state a serious competitor to Cancun or Orlando for February tourism. They might give a boost, however, to another form of economic development — the constant push to attract business expansions and high-skilled workers.

“You come here, you’re going to find a strong workforce,” Thill said.

For out-of-state workers contemplating a job offer in Minnesota, the Super Bowl publicity will remind them that the wintertime climate can be ugly. It will also show that a certain type of personality can not only survive the winter, they can have some goofy fun with it.

“And if you can’t handle it, sorry,” Thill said. “But we Minnesotans can. And we stay because Minnesota is an incredible place to live.”

Until last year, the state was in the midst of a 15-year domestic-migration losing streak. More people moved from Minnesota to other states than vice-versa. That changed in the census estimates for the most recent year, with a net in-migration of nearly 8,000, more when foreign arrivals are counted.

Quin, the Massachusetts native who came to Minnesota 20 years ago and decided to stay, expects the new trend to continue — despite the weather and the sometimes not-so-favorable reviews of the state from the East Coast.

“The genie’s out of the bottle,” he said. “It’s no longer a secret — it’s good living here.”