Note: OnMilwaukee.com's Doug Russell in reporting from Indianapolis this week, covering Super Bowl XLVI between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots.

INDIANAPOLIS -- It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime, never to be forgotten. Instead, it was a nightmare that seemed like it would never end.

One year ago, the Packers played the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV in Arlington, TX. Cowboys Stadium was built by the taxpayers of that city with two things in mind. One, to have the biggest, most spectacular, most talked about, most envied edifice to sports and entertainment excess known to man; and to host Super Bowls.

Not Super Bowl, mind you...Super Bowls. Many of them. To be part of the short-list rotation that once included Pasadena and San Diego; that now includes suburban Phoenix and has always included Miami and New Orleans. So called "Jerry World" (for Cowboys owner Jerry Jones) also was bold about its lust for a BCS game as well. It was more than a football stadium. It was a showcase.

When Super Bowl XLV was awarded to Cowboys Stadium in May 2007, it was a full two years before the stadium was even completed. Because Jones is who he is, he promised the biggest, most grandiose, incredible event that the NFL had ever seen.

As part of that promise of enormity was the pledge to break the all-time Super Bowl attendance record. The goal was to better the mark of 103,985 set in 1980 during Super Bowl XIV. Since Jones' stadium had a permanent capacity of about 80,000, using areas left open but available for temporary seats and standing room, a new attendance record was in sight. After the Cotton Bowl Classic on Jan. 2, crews got to work on installing 15,000 additional seats that would be sold for the Super Bowl just over one month later.

That was the plan. Game day on Feb. 6 proved otherwise.

"When we finally got to the front of the line after going through the metal detectors," ticket holder Bobbi Barclay remembers. "They scanned our tickets, and we got a big red 'X' on the scanner."

It couldn't be, could it? After all, the lifelong Packers fan and her husband David had already laid out thousands of dollars for tickets, airfare, and hotel for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see their team vie for an NFL championship. And now they get a big red "X" on the scanner? What went wrong? Did they buy tickets from a disreputable source? Was it just an electronic error?

Whatever the issue was, they weren't getting inside.

Adding to the sickening sense of panic already setting in to the couple's collective stomach, Bobbi was 35 weeks pregnant with their second child.

"We had an elaborate plan in place of how we were going to get there early," Barclay says today. "I was going to take a lot of breaks, I was going to sit down a lot and how we weren't going to try to do too much. "

That plan went out the window the instant that "X" reared is ugly head.

"We were told to go stand in a section of other people waiting," Barclay continues. "As it turns out from talking to those people, we surmise that we are all in sections that end in 'A' for auxiliary. We were in section 425A. So, we stood around for quite some time. I had to find someone willing to take me inside the stadium to use the restroom."

Meanwhile, Las Vegas resident (and lifelong Packers fan) Craig Newby had also traveled to the Dallas area to check another item off of his bucket list.

"I went in and it seemed like they were having some sort of issue and they were completing construction," Newby recalls. "We tried to get some answers, but there was just a lot of confusion."

That confusion was because the fire marshall would not approve certain areas of seats that simply were not finished and up to code. Inexplicably, in certain areas, railings had not been installed; in others there were risers that were not properly fastened in. Although there was tremendous political pressure to have a good showing during a week that had already been panned by traveling NFL reporters, the only thing that would have been worse than closing off those sections of sold seats was to have someone get injured or even killed by an unsafe section.

"It seems surprising in retrospect that they knew that they were having an issue completing those seats in time for the game," Newby says. What made the situation even more unbearable for those seated in the affected areas was that there was a total lack of information being shared by stadium workers, security personnel, or the NFL.

"After standing around for some time, we finally were proceeded to be sent all about the stadium, Barclay says. "It was pretty clear that no one knew what the heck to do with us, and we weren't given very good information. At this point people were saying that they think there is something wrong with the seats, and that was all we knew."

"They kept saying that a Ticketmaster representative would come down and take care of the problem," Barclay's husband, David, remembers. "Nobody came down, so eventually they told us that we had to go all the way around to a tent on the other side of the stadium complex and started to lead us there. After we finally got all the way over there, the person in that tent said they had no idea what we were talking about."

For a 35-weeks pregnant Bobbi Barclay, all of that walking was having a devastating effect. Tired and exhausted, the two briefly considered just packing it in, cutting their losses, and would try to get some sort of satisfaction afterward.

"After a good hour and a half of walking around the stadium, we were finally told to go over into what I refer to as the holding pen," Bobbi says. "Pretty soon after arriving there, somebody from the NFL came down and handed out fliers which basically said that they were sorry for the inconvenience, but our seats would be unavailable for the game. we were told that we would be able to watch the game somewhere on television. "

Part of the problem for those needing answers was that the NFL was attempting to make every possible accommodation possible. The freebie tickets league employees were given as a reward for a season of hard work were reallocated to displaced paying customers. Frantic repairs were made wherever possible on the auxiliary seats. It was not going to be a perfect solution, but given the circumstances, even though it did not seem like it to those that were literally left out in the cold, the NFL was making every attempt to make things right.

Eventually, some five hours after first arriving at the Cowboys Stadium complex, the Barclay's got hopeful news: they were allowed in to go as far as the entrance of their section to see if they were going to, in essence, win or lose the ticket lottery.

"When we finally got to our section, there was a security guard looking at everyone's ticket," says Bobbi. "If your seat had been cleared, you were allowed into the section. If your seat was still affected, you were sent away. We were lucky. We got to our seats about 30 minutes before the game started. We didn't know until right then whether or not we would be able to see the game or not."

Newby was not nearly as fortunate.

"I ran up to see the seats and people being let into the entrance where I was supposed to go and being told 'no, you don't have seats,'" Newby vividly recounts. "They said 'you need to go back down and ask another group of people where you are supposed to sit or what you are supposed to do.' There was obviously nothing they were going to do about it while we were there."

Eventually, Newby and his game companion, ironically a lifelong Steelers fan, watched the game from a standing room area, with the fear that they would be kicked out of it at any time because they never actually went where the NFL was trying to direct them.

"I expected to be kicked out at any time and sent back outside and told to go home," says Newby. "It was just incredibly frustrating to the point where I really lost all patience with the next day seeing tweets from (CNBC sports business reporter) Darren Rovell about how everyone had been treated so great, how people got goodie bags, how people got free food, how people got free drinks, how people got to go on the field and celebrate.

"To put this in perspective," he continued, "I was with a Pittsburgh Steelers season ticket holder since the 1970's. The thought process of being on the football field as the Packers won the Super Bowl and making him take pictures of me next to the celebration would have been more than anyone has recovered as part of this dispute. Literally priceless. Hearing these things allegedly happened as the NFL was putting out PR releases of that sort really got me angry."

In the end, for their troubles and for agreeing to not pursue further legal action, the Barclay's got the face value of their tickets refunded and have the right to choose another Super Bowl to attend with the tickets being paid for by the NFL. Newby took a cash settlement of $5,000. Neither party thought that being a part of the class-action lawsuit brought by some fans that were left without seats was in their best interest, but both Newby and the Barclay's are interested to see what happens as the case moves forward.

Here in Indianapolis, when the subject of temporary seats was broached this week in the wake of last year's debacle, both Frank Supovitz, the NFL's senior vice president for events and Colts owner Jim Irsay agree that bigger is not always better. After having the original temporary seating plan being determined to be both "aggressive and unproven" there have been only 254 additional seats installed for Sunday's game at Lucas Oil Stadium. In that case, even if it were worst-case, there could be alternative plans made that would not negatively affect anyone who had paid four figures for tickets.

After the fiasco of last year, you would like to think an organization as meticulous as the NFL has learned its lesson.

"In terms of customer service, when people are paying that kind of outrageous prices for a football ticket, there left a lot to be desired," Newby concluded. "I received the settlement that came in from them, and then out of the blue, a few months later, I received a Super Bowl XLV seat cushion. That's the last contact the NFL has had with me."

But given everything that Newby went through last year, would he ever consider attending another Super Bowl, even if his beloved Packers were in it? After mulling that question over for almost 10 seconds, Newby answered.

"Never say never."