Why Snow Never Stuck at Gillette Stadium Sunday Night

As New England Patriots fans revel in the team’s Sunday afternoon win, it’s hard not to wonder what role, if any, the weather played in deciding the Divisional Round game against the Houston Texans. Clearly, the Patriots consistently practice in cold, messy New England weather, while the Texans do not.

Still, you may have noticed something strange during the game. Even though the snow was coming down hard at Gillette Stadium, it never really accumulated on the field.

Meanwhile, the opposite was true at Soldier Field in Chicago. Granted, it was a bit colder there, but the snow piled up fast enough that grounds crew members had to keep running out to clear the sidelines and yard lines during breaks in the action.

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Why Snow Did Not Stick at Gillette Stadium

So why did the Patriots game look like a snow globe in the stands, but have a clean playing surface on the turf?

When they were building Gillette Stadium back in 2002, the Krafts spent a ton of money to install a heated field system beneath the playing surface. They modernized the field and the technology over time making it possible to keep snow from sticking during a game. A local company, Shea Concrete, was tasked with modernized the radiant heating at Gillette Stadium.

The Snowplow Game Patriots Fans Will Never Forget

If only this kind of field technology existed back in the early 1980s.

Longtime Patriots fans may remember the legendary "Snowplow Game" against the Miami Dolphins in Foxboro on December 12, 1982. With brutal conditions and no scoring late in the fourth quarter, a stadium worker on work release from the nearby prison drove a tractor onto the field and cleared a spot so the Patriots could attempt a field goal.

That kick ended up being the only points of the game, and the Dolphins protested the move. The NFL did not overturn the outcome, but later clarified the rules so it would not happen again.

"What are they going to do, throw me in jail?" the convict joked.

For what it's worth, the extended forecast for the AFC Championship Game this coming Sunday afternoon is a mix of sun and clouds and 40 degrees in Denver.