Viking’s Wife Is the Hero We Didn’t Know We Need
Twenty years ago, one of the most bizarre, outrageous, and contentious off-the-field scandals rocked the Minnesota Vikings. Several players booked an excursion on a boat on Lake Minnetonka during the bye week to have some team bonding time.
Vikings’ infamous “Love Boat” scandal revisited 20 years later, with surprising twists and the unsung hero who emerged from the chaos.
Nothing controversial about that, and most would say a great way to stay locally and more likely to stay out of trouble traveling to some exotic locale. After that seemingly innocent day, it quickly came out that the trip was far from a day spent on a boat fishing for walleye.
This was before social media, and the only way for this to get out was through local papers, radio, TV, and word of mouth. Like wildfire, the stories of not just excessive drinking and gambling were bandied about, but “acts of the flesh” with “women of ill repute” were quickly verified, where the story jumped from a local scandal to one that ESPN and major news stations were carrying worldwide.
It’s the 20th Love Boat Anniversary for Vikings
As the days passed, the story grew increasingly worse, with details becoming more cringeworthy by the minute.
Anyone old enough to know and understand that calamity has made jokes over the years around the bye week or anytime a boat is mentioned with the Vikings adjacent to it. In fact, when the Vikings played the Carolina Panthers the following weekend, Steve Smith scored a touchdown against Smoot, and his celebration involved him sitting in the end zone “rowing” as fast as he could. The entire affair was an embarrassment to both the team and its fans.
So here we are at the 20th anniversary of this scandalous moment, and guess what has happened: the Vikings are on the bye week. A much-deserved and obvious scheduled break after being in Europe for almost two weeks. It’s funny that it happened this way, and sometimes you just have to laugh at the serendipity.
Several Viking-related fans and historians have shared the fact that the anniversary was today, making fans both chuckle and squirm simultaneously. That leads to one amusing moment that may have saved us from history repeating itself. The hero of the moment is Samantha Van Ginkel, the wife of linebacker Andrew.
She revealed on X (Twitter) that her circle of friends was planning a boat trip during the bye week. It was even planned to be on Lake Minnetonka. Yikes. She did exactly what anyone would do in this situation and dropped an article about the “Love Boat” into the group chat.
“As a lifelong Vikings fan, I’ll never forget what happened the last time a boat was involved… so when a few people started planning a cruise on Minnetonka for bye week, I dropped an article in the group chat with all the details. Safe to say, no one’s setting sail this week…”, Samantha posted.
Some might wonder how no one on the team would make the connection and halt all plans. You have to remember that most members of the Vikings were kids when that happened. Harrison Smith was only 16 years old at the time, and Carson Wentz and CJ Ham were 12. For more perspective, Justin Jefferson was 6, and J.J. McCarthy was 2.
They’re unlikely to have much memory of such a significant issue, and they didn’t grow up as Vikings fans, where it would have eventually been passed down to them by those who had lived through it.
Samantha doubled down on her story with a great follow-up tweet. She said, “The reactions were the best: “No fcking way”, “How many of them had wives??”, “Wait, that’s not true tho, right?!”, “Ur kidding”, “Oh god this is going to cause a ruckus”, “We should make it a theme”, “I had no idea”, “Ok nvm, let’s just go to dinner”
While I don’t think anything like that would ever happen again, and I assume this trip would be more family- or couples-oriented, it would have been something for the media to chew on for laughs. With everything going on, including Jordan Addison’s situation, quarterback discussions, and almost all of the offensive line being injured, and wires deflecting field goal attempts, we could use something to help decompress.
So, thank you, Samantha, for being a Vikings fan and for giving us something to laugh at, helping even the fans unwind after a long trip away from home.
On A More Serious Note …
OK, we’ve had a little laugh at our own expense.
I wanted to point out that Samantha and Andrew have a foundation that they run to help people in their community called the Van Ginkel Impact Foundation.
They focus on helping children and their families affected by cancer, victims of human trafficking, and this summer, they raised funds to help those devastated by the intense flooding in their hometown and surrounding communities. It’s great to see them give back to those in need.
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