the iconic Lombardi Trophy in ice: this time, a Super Bowl ice sculpture for a year when the Super Bowl wasn’t in New Orleans
updated a BUNCH in 9/23, finishing on 9/27/23: more of everything was added; the post was probably at least quadrupled in size!
Super Bowl ice sculptures
One of the reasons I moved to New Orleans years ago was that I thought it might be an interesting place to live. I was right. And while things haven’t always gone perfectly (see August, 2005), working as an ice sculptor in New Orleans is pretty interesting too, especially when the Super Bowl comes to town! Knowing that most ice carvers will never see a Super Bowl come to their city (The way they’re awarded is not exactly “fair” in some respects.), I thought I might share some of my ice sculpting experiences around one of the world’s largest sports and media spectacles.
some Nola Super Bowl history
Super Bowl XLVII was the second one that I’ve been around; back in 2002, XXXVI was my first. As I update this, New Orleans has now hosted 10 of the games and is in second place, behind Miami for the most hosted. Nola will be back tied with Miami in 2025 when LIX comes to town. New Orleans is an NFL favorite because it’s a fun place to visit, with lots of hotel rooms, a rich sports history, and typically mild winter weather. Even better, the city has a fantastic assortment of restaurants and other attractions packed into an area within easy walking distance of the stadium and the majority of the large hotels.
The situation back in 2002 was a crazy one: the game’s location had been hastily switched from post-9/11 New York to New Orleans, despite conflicts with Mardi Gras events and a large auto convention in town just days before. I remember trying to deliver ice sculptures while navigating around Mardi Gras parade routes. That in itself isn’t terribly unusual; happens every year. However, the stress level was cranked way up because everybody was scrambling to find what they needed when they needed it.
When the Super Bowl comes to town, it’s a BIG deal and it has a huge impact on events all over the place. Way more than just a Sunday game, it’s a collection of high profile events that consume a whole week and take up most of the available venues. That’s why competition to land a Super Bowl is so intense; it’s a big economic windfall for the host city. In addition, the heavy media presence shines a spotlight on the host city and offers a level of publicity that might be unmatched except by the Olympics.
practically in the middle of the action
For XXXVI, my ice sculpting studio was in a mixed commercial and residential neighborhood called the Marigny. The Marigny is one neighborhood away from the French Quarter, so it wasn’t a terrible place to prepare for all the Super Bowl festivities. I was working with the host hotel, the Hyatt New Orleans, and we had a lot of ice bars and sculptures planned for events at the Hyatt. Plus, there are always other parties all over the place, all during the week before the Super Bowl.
Because Super Bowls are a LOT, I brought in some help to make all the Super Bowl ice sculptures. (Also, I was already worn out from the car dealer convention that was going on right before Super Bowl week.) Joe Rimer of Ice Pro came to town with some extra hands, a bunch of ice blocks and a freezer truck.
It turned out that Joe’s extra resources and help were essential for making everything happen. Unfortunately though, the freezer truck was problematic. Not because it wasn’t keeping the extra ice cold, but because it was noisy. Someone in the Marigny wasn’t a fan and decided to sabotage it 🤬 We managed to get the rest of the ice into my studio freezer and kept going, but it was a frustrating speed bump.
Because XXXVI had a very patriotic feel, coming so soon after 9/11, several of the Super Bowl ice sculptures that we did had a red, white, and blue theme. I remember sculpting late into the night with Joe, working on a couple of my American eagle sculptures for another event at the Hyatt. It also seemed weirdly appropriate that the Patriots were involved, and even stranger when they won 😳
I don’t have tons of pics of our sculptures from that Super Bowl. Partly because of the chaos and partly because phone cameras kind of sucked then (so they weren’t everywhere), we didn’t take a lot of pics to begin with. Also though, I wasn’t always super happy with my ice from that time. So I’m happy to let my later ice work displace my earlier work and pretend that I never put out an ice sculpture that I wasn’t proud of 🤣😬 And of course, oftentimes when you look back at your old art, there’s a bit of a “yuck” 🤮 That’s good though; otherwise you’re not improving!
this Patriots ice bar was one of 4 ice bars at a Super Bowl party at the Hyatt New Orleans. There was also a Super Bowl bar, an NFL bar, and a Rams bar, if I remember correctly.
who's this Tom Brady guy?
From 2002, the Super Bowl ice sculptures that I’ll never forget were a team logo and a Lombardi Trophy for the New England Patriots after game party. As much as I’d like to pretend that everything had gone ultra-smoothly and that I was right on schedule with all my sculptures done and plenty of time to spare, that wouldn’t reflect Super Bowl realities.
The Lombardi piece was the last sculpture that I had to do and I was still working on it during the game. (Joe was already on his way back to Florida at this point.) The expectation was that the party at the old Fairmont Hotel would be a low key affair; the St. Louis Rams were favored to beat the Patriots handily. However, Tom Brady was making his Super Bowl debut and things didn’t quite go as expected. I remember the pressure ramped up as the Patriots played to win; I had to finish and get the ice to the hotel! (Fortunately, Super Bowls are LONG games.)
When the Patriots won, the stress to get these final Super Bowl ice sculptures in place was cranked all the way up! But the traffic on the way to the hotel was hardly moving! Thankfully, my studio wasn’t far from the Fairmont, so we got things set up in time and ready to welcome ecstatic Patriots fans and VIPs.
Then I went home and collapsed.
P.S. But I couldn’t rest for TOO long. I had qualified to sculpt ice at the Cultural Olympic Arts Festival ice sculpting competition in Provo, UT. This was a dream competition for me! And that was coming up VERY quickly. But that’s a story for another time…
a New Orleans Super Bowl in Miami
the Super Bowl ice sculpture that Nola waited a long time for: in the frantic preparations for Lombardi Gras, I was asked to make this first ever championship ice sculpture for the Saints parade
Not all the New Orleans Super Bowls have been in Nola. In 2010, in Miami, Drew Brees and Sean Payton led a magical run to victory in Super Bowl XLIV over Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. This long awaited first Super Bowl victory for the Saints prompted one of the largest (maybe THE largest) celebrations ever in a city known for its parties. The accompanying parade, dubbed Lombardi Gras, happened in the midst of the 2010 Mardi Gras season.
My way of getting in on the fun was to make 2 Super Bowl ice sculptures (ok, how about Super Bowl-related then?) to celebrate the Saints’ victory: a Saints fleur de lis for the Lombardi Gras celebration and a massive “Cool Brees” ice sculpture in Fairbanks, Alaska. I used the Cool Brees sculpture to raise money for Drew Brees’ foundation.
even though I’m a transplant to Nola, it was basically impossible to avoid getting caught up in the energy of the Saints win. As a charity fundraiser and my contribution to the fervor of the Who Dat Nation, I made this 9 foot tall Drew Brees sculpture, called “Cool Brees” in Fairbanks as a special project.
XLVII: the Super Bowl returns to New Orleans!
You might remember that late in the summer of 2005, the Superdome was not a happy place to be. At the time, there was rightfully a lot of doubt that the iconic Louisiana Superdome would ever see another Super Bowl, or even another football game. So XLVII was an affirming sort of celebration for New Orleans; finally things were pretty much back to how they were before. The overall feeling was that a some things were still pretty messed up, but most things were back, and some things were better than ever!
A sense of optimism accompanied this Super Bowl, along with a new appreciation for the opportunity; New Orleanians are painfully aware of how quickly things can be taken away. But the game was finally back after an eleven year hiatus! (At that point, that was the longest time between NOLA Super Bowls.)
Ravens vs. 49ers!
This time, it was San Francisco 49ers vs. Baltimore Ravens and the Brothers Bowl, pitting Harbaugh vs. Harbaugh (as coaches).
One quick note, since we already know who won. I’d just like to point out that ice sculpture purchases seem to have predicted the winners in the 2 Nola Super Bowls that I’ve worked!
Hear me out: we never did a 49ers Super Bowl ice sculpture for XLVII. Meanwhile, our Ravens sculpture is pictured below. And while we did do a Rams ice bar for the big Hyatt party for XXXVI (There was also a Patriots ice bar, pictured up above.), no Rams ice sculptures were ever even scheduled. And of course, we did sculptures for the Patriots after party, which turned out to be a victory party. Maybe ice sculptures are an edge? 🤔😜 Whatever teams are headed to Nola in 2025 should take note!
with football games come cheerleaders! Our Ravens ice sculpture adorned a pregame party at Mannings’ Restaurant. In hindsight, it appears the 49ers should have gotten a Super Bowl ice sculpture too, just to even out the odds 🤣
the Super Bowl parties begin!
I unexpectedly got to meet Dan Aykroyd (looking very Blues Brotherish) at the Super Bowl Media party after I set up a Crystal Head Vodka ice sculpture. Not surprisingly, this was one of many alcohol-related Super Bowl ice sculptures that we set up that week.
When the Super Bowl comes to town, there is kind of a limited takeover of the city for about a week. If you don’t want to have anything to do with the festivities, you kinda have to avoid anywhere near the stadium or downtown, or risk getting caught up in traffic, parades, or whatever.
Once again, for XLVII, I got Joe Rimer and his Ice Pro peeps to help me out with all the ice that had to go out. For the first couple of the week’s events though, I was still mostly on my own.
Earlier in the week, I had the Super Bowl media party. For that, I had a large Crystal Head Vodka sculpture. When I got the venue, Mardi Gras World, they said, put it up there 👆 “Up there,” of course, is one of the worst things you can hear about where to put an ice sculpture. (You can get a sense of how high up it was in the photo above. Not insane, but also not fun 
)
This big skull bottle sculpture was heavy and hard to grab; not how I wanted to start off my Super Bowl ice sculptures. I think I stood on four milk crates and a beer cooler 😜 and somehow, we got it up there. Nobody died, nothing was broken; it was just stressful. But I was pretty unhappy that I’d been blindsided with this difficult set up.
I ended up leaving for a bit and then came back to check on the sculpture, still unhappy. However, all that was forgotten when I realized who the bartender was behind the Crystal Head Vodka bar: Dan Aykroyd. I’d completely forgotten that he was associated with the vodka. He was busy, but one of his business partners asked if I wanted to meet him. Duh 
Mr. Aykroyd turned out to be a total class act, and even expertly positioned me for the photo, getting my ice into the background of the pic. My Super Bowl week suddenly was off to a fun start!
Not long after, Joe got into town with ice for the bigger events. Over the next several days, we went around setting up various Super Bowl ice sculptures at different venues.
Super Bowls seem to be kind of reunions for many players. Doug Williams was asked to appear at an event in Baton Rouge and there was a Pro Football Hall of Fame event at a country club.
we had several Ketel One Vodka displays for the pregame festivities. These were similar to set ups that iceculture had produced for them many times, but with a football and Nola twist.
checking on that tongue-sticks-to-ice rumor. Turns out, not in Nola when the ice is already melting.
as the crescent of the Mississippi flowed past downtown New Orleans and the French Quarter, one of many XLVII events was held in a park on the river’s bank.
SO many corporate parties around town in the run up to the big game! Doritos had their own party at a restaurant not far from the stadium.
don’t ask me why it’s an astronaut, but this was the first Super Bowl ice sculpture we delivered on Super Bowl Sunday, to a venue by the Quarter. And it was insanely early, like 5 am?! 😳🥱
Super Bowl Sunday for XLVII finally arrives!
I couldn’t tell you if this was predawn or post-sundown Super Bowl Sunday, but we were there a lot that day!
After days of running all over downtown New Orleans, frantically delivering Super Bowl ice sculptures, we finally made it to Super Bowl Sunday, a day where almost all of our ice was in one place: the Mercedes Benz Superdome. To be sure, it’s a super-big place, but at least we weren’t trying to deal with insane traffic.
After we made a quick detour to set up an early breakfast ice sculpture (haven’t done many of those 🤔), we went to the stadium to start the long process of getting through security and setting up all the ice.
Since that day was super long and kind of a blur, I’m not 100% on all the ice we had to set up, but I think we had a couple of seafood displays that were tucked away on different floors of the Dome. And then we definitely had 2 large Crown Royal football displays and a large Bacardi ice bar in different suites.
since they’re full of air, freezing footballs into ice can be a pain. Each of the footballs in this Crown Royal Super Bowl ice sculpture was labeled with the number of a previous New Orleans Super Bowl. 10 Super Bowls = 10 footballs. (Actually, there were 20 footballs, since we did 2 of these.)
well, we didn’t have seats, but we did have a pretty good view of the game!
things go pretty smoothly, mostly...
Considering all the things that could go wrong for such a big event, things for us seemed to go pretty smoothly. Since we had ice in several suites and on several levels in the Superdome, getting around with tons of ice was rough. Elevators weren’t always available, so that meant using the Dome’s giant ramps. During one set up, one of our hand crank lifts failed and we had to muscle some Crown Royal ice into place. We also set up the Bacardi ice bar wrong. The designer, Lianne Rimer of Ice Pro, was the only one to notice though 🤣 (We just reversed a couple of the bar pillars and the resulting design was a little wonky.)
After we finished setting everything up, the crowds started invading the Dome. My impression was that the fans at a Super Bowl are a bit different from the fans at a regular season game, or at least from fans at a Saints game (since that’s most of my sample size). I’d say that it’s kind of like the difference in enthusiasm that you see between concerts that are sit down vs. ones that are standing room only and maybe have a mosh pit. Super Bowl fans seemed way more sedate and well dressed compared to the borderline craziness I’ve seen at Saints games 🤪
But since about 90% of the stressful stuff we had to do was done, we could relax for a bit and, as a nice perk, watch the game 🏈
Not all our work was done though! Around halftime, we had to leave the Dome and set up one last bit of ice: a Pepsi ice bar at a country club where Beyoncé was supposed to go for an after party. It was nice to be almost done with the set ups, but it was also kind of a bummer since we didn’t think we’d make it back for the rest of the game 🤷♂️
A funny thing happened though. We DID make it back for the end of the game. Because New Orleans’ power utility, Entergy, got flagged for the mother of all delay of game penalties when the Dome’s power went out! We might well be the only ones happy about that one, lol!
Joe is always looking to help. We had to leave before halftime to go set up another ice bar offsite. On the way out, Joe noticed that this big electrical connection outside the stadium wasn’t right. Who knows what would have happened if he hadn’t seen that?!
this is the Pepsi ice bar that we set up at a country club for a special Super Bowl after party. I think Beyoncé was supposed to attend, but I’m not sure she ever made it. We were bummed, since setting this up meant we’d probably not get back before the game ended. Funny how things turn out sometimes!
still a lot of work to do after the game!
The game turned out to be pretty exciting at the end, with the Ravens winning by just 3 points. I wasn’t really pulling for either team (except that the Ravens had gotten an ice sculpture from us 👍), but it was pretty thrilling to actually be AT the Super Bowl. As a kid, I used to know who’d won most of the early Super Bowls, so it was fun to get a chance to be in the stadium for one. Plus, I was getting paid to be there 😃
However, the part about being paid meant, at the end of the game, we had a ton of work still to do. We did screw around a little bit, throwing touchdowns to each other on the confetti covered field. But mostly, we disassembled all the melted sculptures, chucking the ice into the giant whale containers that are usually used for trash and slowly pushing them around on the Dome’s ramps. Still no elevators for much of the time! 😫
In the end, nobody died, but we all felt dead ☠️ When we finally finished, most places were closed, so we went to go eat at a bar on St. Charles Ave. I seem to remember that I fell asleep while we were there 😴
purple and yellow Ravens confetti explodes into the air as the Baltimore Ravens celebrate!
after the teams and everyone pretty much cleared out, we went down to the field and threw touchdowns to each other 🤣
our ice held up pretty well! After a long day and and a long game, it was time to get rid of all the ice. All the footballs in the Crown Royal sculptures were still frozen in place and the Bacardi logos (in a big bar in another suite) lasted more than long enough!
future Super Bowl ice sculptures: LIX is coming!
2025 will be here soon! By the time you read this, it may already be here, or even have come and gone. On February 9, Super Bowl LIX will be played in New Orleans, this time at the Caesars Superdome (It’s the same stadium as before, just with a new sponsor.) LIX will again tie Nola with Miami for the most Super Bowls (11).
Based on past experience, I’m going to take a wild guess and say that I’ll have at least a Super Bowl ice sculpture or 2 to make for the festivities around LIX. Looking forward to then!
