(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-19 15:39

NEW YORK - The New York Giants, with Arctic-like temperatures and a Super Bowl berth on the line, are guaranteed a cold reception when they step on to Lambeau Field on Sunday to face the Green Bay Packers in the NFC title game.

Last week, when Green Bay beat the Seattle Seahawks 42-20 in the divisional playoff, Packers players and coach Mike McCarthy described the scene at Lambeau as a winter wonderland.

Weathermen are forecasting even more brutal conditions on Sunday, with temperatures hovering near zero Fahrenheit (-17.C) at kickoff to the delight of Green Bay fans.

The Packers have a 13-2 win-loss record in playoffs contested on Lambeau's "Frozen Tundra" and quarterback Brett Favre is 43-5 in games when temperatures are below 35 Fahrenheit.

Growing up in southern Mississippi, Favre never saw snow and rarely watched the thermometer slip towards freezing.

But the future Hall of Famer has come to embrace the Wisconsin winters to earn a well-deserved reputation as a cold-weather quarterback.

"I don't know if you ever get used to it," Favre told reporters. "Mentally you have to try to block it out and rise to the occasion.

"I don't know if I've played that outstanding in bad weather but someone has to do it."

Favre has rewritten the NFL record book with almost every throw this season, setting new marks for most touchdown passes (442), most passing yards (61,655) and most pass completions (5,377).

But the key to victory on Sunday may not rest on Favre's passing as much as it does on Ryan Grant's running.

Grant, a player the Packers plucked from the Giants for a sixth-round draft pick before the season, overcame two early fumbles last week -- which gifted Seattle a 14-0 lead -- by rushing for more than 200 yards in a snowstorm.

The youngest team in the NFL, there is more concern how the Packers will react to the pressure of the big game rather than the temperature.

"Everybody wants to talk about veterans," said McCarthy. "They think it equates to leadership.

"I think leadership is something everybody in our locker room has."

The Packers and their fans are doing everything they can to make the Giants stay in Green Bay as uncomfortable as possible, a local television station even scrubbing its usual showing of Seinfeld -- a favourite of Giants quarterback Eli Manning -- and replacing it with a special on legendary Packers coach Vince Lombardi.

But it has been the Giants' play on the road that has taken them to brink of a Super Bowl, winning nine consecutive games away from the Meadowlands.

The New Yorkers have also displayed an ability to rise to the big occasion going 3-0 in NFC championship games.