There's cold—and then there's NFL cold

We're all for free enterprise and the invisible hand of the marketplace but, when it comes to entrepreneurialship, the National Football League has taken things a bit far in its never-ending quest for the almighty buck. If the NFL Network-Cable System wars weren't enough, the league this season has gone night-game crazy. First, it was just Monday Night Football, then Thursdays and Sundays, followed by after-dark playoff games--in December and January in such warm-weather spots as New England, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Green Bay! Adding frigid insult to frostbite injury this season was TV's new flexi-schedule, which allowed the boob-tube brainiacs to select, on practically a moment's notice, an attractive afternoon matchup between two playoff contenders and move the game from its traditional 1 p.m. kickoff into prime time.

What's a die-hard fan to do? Eating the tickets or giving them away has got to hurt, but then again, so do wind-chills of minus-5[degrees]. The football faithful, however, are a hearty--or should we say masochistic--bunch, so they simply bundle up and endure. That chore certainly is made easier by the Stadium Hat from Tundra Gear, Santa Monica, Calif., a company that has snagged Aras Baskauskas--winner of "Survivor: Panama-Exile Island" as its spokesman.

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Of course, we don't know how much tundra actually grows in Santa Monica, but the company's plush fur headpiece, designed after the traditional Russian hat, is a real crowd-pleaser, and is available in a wide variety of colors and sizes to fit just about every head and every fan. Personally, I'm a longtime Browns fan, and wore my Stadium Hat during that blizzard in Cleveland--albeit while sitting on an easy chair in my living room on Long Island--during a big 8-0 victory over Buffalo (no strangers to Tundra Gear weather). Tundra Gear also stocks nearly 40 cold-weather NFL- and NCAA-licensed team pins that prove the perfect complement to its Stadium Hats ($29.99). For more information, visit www.tundragear.com.

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