BILLINGS — The Montana Grizzlies football team is set to make its first championship appearance since 2009 and many fans are gearing up to travel to Frisco, Texas, for the game.
Among those traveling will be Griz season ticket holder Bryan Meier and his family.
Meier has attended the last two games, both thrilling overtime wins, which helped them punch their ticket to the final game of the season.
"Those last two games, they were definitely heartstoppers," Meier said. "I came out of there and my ears were ringing."
Meier said the atmosphere at Washington-Grizzly Stadium is always special, but these last few weekends have increased the energy.
"It's just awesome to actually be there," Meier said. "It's one thing to watch them on TV, but to actually be there in person is awesome. I've watched and played football my whole life and that environment is unmatched."
Perhaps even better than attending the game was the surprise Meier's wife had for him following the game.
She had gone ahead and made travel arrangements for the championship game in Texas before the semifinal game against North Dakota State University had even kicked off.
"To my surprise, my wife had already booked the tickets," Meier said. "She didn't tell me though because she knew I'd say, 'you're going to jinx it.' She was confident. I was a little nervous, but she was very, very, very confident."
That confidence has paid off for the Meiers, who have their entire trip, including hotel rooms and game tickets, already in hand. Other Griz fans haven't been so lucky.
University of Montana Director of Communications Dave Kuntz says the school was only allotted 4,000 tickets by the NCAA for the game. The capacity for Toyota Stadium in Frisco is about 20,000.
"Included in that was the tickets for the band, the players' families, and all of the support staff that's needed to get the players down there," Kuntz said. "After you take care of those considerations, that allotment gets pretty small, pretty quickly."
Kuntz said the university is also struggling with the logistical aspects of getting Griz fans all the way from Montana to Texas.
A charter flight, which had originally been scheduled to fly out of Billings has been canceled because there was more of a demand in the western part of the state.
"We just weren't seeing the same interest in Billings as we were in Missoula," Kuntz said. "So the third-party organizer had to make a decision. Instead of having a flight in Billings, Great Falls and Missoula, we moved the Billings one to Missoula as well to meet that demand."
Kuntz said that the charter package would have included hotel reservations, as well as tickets to the game and other events. Kuntz said they are looking at offering more charter flights that just wouldn't come with game tickets.
"We want to get as many Grizzly fans down there as possible," Kuntz said. "Hopefully, we'll make some more championship runs in the next few years and we can have some of these details ironed out."
All are challenges Kuntz said he wished they didn't have to deal with, but he's still confident the Grizzly faithful will show up in a big way in a couple weeks.
“If people want to get down to Texas and be a part of this big party, we encourage it because there’s going to be a lot Griz fans and friendly faces heading down to Dallas," Kuntz said.
And Meier said he couldn't be more grateful to be one of the lucky Griz fans in attendance.
"Three weeks is a long time to wait," Meier said. "So, it's going to be a long three weeks, but yeah I'm super excited. South Dakota State is a good team, but I think we've got a shot."
