I'll never forget covering the Falcons-Packers playoff game at Lambeau Field in '02.
After the (night) game, after waiting long past deadline for a Favre press conference that never happened (the first he ever skipped apparently), the security guards had left and the tunnel to the field was open. I figured I'd better go out there while I had the chance.
I went out on the famed frozen tundra, which was actually frozen, and looked at the snowflakes backlit by the Lambeau Field lights. These were those huge snowflakes you get once in a blue moon, it was really beautiful. I stood near the south end zone, the Ice Bowl end zone, the replay game end zone, etc. I had that kind of moment Hockeybeat had. It was mystical. Whatever the reason, I was on the field for a Packer playoff game. Granted, the first one they ever lost at Lambeau, but a playoff game nonetheless.
And little did I know, thanks to the dickhead management of the paper I was working for back then, that it was my second-last trip to Lambeau. I did a one-off playoff game (the Al Harris interception game) a year later and that was it. Turns out I really only covered the team for a year after being promised otherwise when I took the job. But at least I had that moment.
There's a much, much stupider story that goes along with that, but I don't want to sully the thread with my dumbassery.