Seventeen inches of snow tore three panels and collapsed the Teflon roof of the Metrodome before a week 14 matchup in mid-December last season, diverting the two NFC opponents to play each other at Detroit's Ford Field, home of the Lions.

Now, nearly seven months to the day, the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission resurrected the structure on Wednesday morning, inflating the nearly 30-year-old roof in downtown Minneapolis in about 45 minutes.

But, ironically, the Giants won't be seeing it any time soon after playing the Vikings on the road for three straight years.

In fact, New York's schedule doesn't even place them within a thousand miles of the dome during 2011, while not playing the Vikings for the first time since 2006.

In the wake of the storm, Big Blue hightailed it out of Michigan following their 21-3 victory over the Vikings, their first since losing four in a row to the Purple People Eaters (two were in Minneapolis).

Here are some memorable quotes and video from the three-day odyssey that took the Giants from their facility in New Jersey to a diversion in Kansas City for a night, and then to Detroit -- 30 hours later and 690 miles east of their original destination.

Justin Tuck: "All of us are in this, I guess, and it's like re-creating a bad Christmas movie, that's what we've been feeling like."

John Mara: "This one has had more challenges than I can ever remember, because we were stranded in the airport yesterday not knowing where to go or what to do and then we made the call to get everyone out of the airport and into a hotel. We were staying the night and really didn't have any further instructions. Our original plan was to fly into Minnesota this morning and play the game as scheduled, and we were told at some point last night that with the snow on the roof of the dome that it wasn't going to be available until Monday night. Obviously, things have changed quite a bit over the last 24 hours."

Eli Manning: "Earlier today, when we were sitting around trying to figure out where we were going to play, we had a meeting and I made the rookies do a little singing."

The star of the show was Mitch Petrus, a then-rookie guard from Arkansas.

"Mitch, he did a lot freestyling and stuff," Tuck said. "He did a lot of country, mostly freestyling."

"That lightened the mood a little bit with all the players being around each other and just kind of hanging out and having a little fun and taking advantage of this opportunity to do a little team bonding," Manning said. "This is different, but I thought we've kept good spirits and good focus."

2011 Travel Plans (miles from Mall of America Field)

Week 1 at FedEx Field (1,112)

Week 3 at Lincoln Financial Field (1, 189)

Week 4 at University of Phoenix Stadium (1,731)

Week 9 at Gillette Stadium (1,397)

Week 10 at Candlestick Park (2,046)

Week 12 at Superdome (1,221)

Week 14 at Cowboys Stadium (1,018)

Week 16 at New Meadowlands Stadium (Jets – 1,191)