For professional sports, climate change could create a whole new ball game

On Jan. 13, a winter storm walloped most of the U.S., bringing dangerously cold winds, freezing rain, heavy snow and near-record lows in some areas.

The extreme weather also packed a punch for a few professional sports teams. 

In Buffalo, its NHL and NFL teams both rescheduled games, citing the safety of fans and players. In Kansas City, however, a planned bout between the Chiefs and Miami Dolphins went ahead despite temperatures reaching –30 C with the windchill. That game hit the record books as the fourth-coldest in NFL history, with casualties including frostbite, hypothermia and a busted helmet.

Cold snaps aren't unusual in North America, even with Earth seeing record high temperatures. Steve Easterbrook, director of the University of Toronto's School of the Environment, says the boundaries of the polar vortex are held by the jet stream. But as the poles warm up faster, the jet stream gets weaker.

That means sudden blasts of Arctic air may occur more frequently, with the impacts felt ever further south.

For professional sports teams, how might that change the game? 

During the Chiefs game, quarterback Patrick Mahomes lost a piece of his helmet when it broke off after a head-to-head  hit with one of the Dolphins. The extreme cold was believed to be a contributing factor.

Helmet manufacturer VICIS released a statement on X a few days after the game, saying, "Extreme conditions like those experienced in Saturday evening's NFL playoff game are bound to test the limits of even the highest performing products." 

John Eric Goff, a professor of physics at the University of Lynchburg in Virginia, says the damage could have been caused by temperature difference between the inside and outside of the helmet. 

"The outside might