CHICAGO — Used to going to a downtown hotel to spend the night before home games, the Chicago Bears will head instead to the airport.
They'll take a 25-minute, low-altitude flight to Champaign, their home this season nearly 150 miles south of the city they represent.
"It's a road game; it's just a shorter trip," said Bill McGrane, the Bears' director of administration.
While construction crews work on a $632 million project to rebuild Solider Field into a state-of-the art facility for the 2003 season, all eight Bears "home" games will be played at 79-year-old Memorial Stadium at the University of Illinois.
"I think we have to stay as honest and upfront about the thing as we can," Bears coach Dick Jauron said.
"No. 1, there are no alternatives, that's where we are," Jauron said. "We will have a home-field advantage, and they will be our fans.
"No. 2, is we're excited to give people a chance to see us who haven't had a chance to see us. There is no other way to look at it."
Getting to their new home was more of a chore than expected when the Bears ventured to their first exhibition game in early August.
After backing out of a deal to stay in nearby Urbana, the team was quartered about 50 miles away in Decatur, where the Bears were founded as the Staleys in 1920.
But an hourlong bus trip to Champaign and sticky traffic en route to the game prompted plenty of complaints and yet another switch — back to Champaign for the start of the regular season. Now the hotel is a few blocks from the stadium, perhaps resolving the first crisis of what could be a testing season that begins Sept. 8 against the Vikings.
"It's like anything else that is new," McGrane said. "When we go in there for the first time for the Minnesota game, the guys will get used to it, and I think from then on it will be pretty much OK.
"The big thing is they will be able to look out the window and see the stadium, and they'll like that."
The Bears went 13-3 last season, including 6-2 on the road and 7-1 at home, not counting a playoff loss to the Eagles.
"We've got 16 away games this year," said veteran tackle James "Big Cat" Williams. "We'll have our fans in the stands, but we still have to do a lot of traveling. We have to mentally prepare for it like it's 16 away games.
"I think we'll be able to go on the road and win games, even though we won't be playing at Soldier Field. We'll still be able to hunker down and get what we have to get done."
The Bears did their research, talking with the Tennessee Titans. When that franchise relocated from Houston, it had to make a 400-mile round trip from Nashville to Memphis for home games.
One of the Titans' concerns was for their relatives, many of whom didn't fly to the games but had to take to the roads.
"Probably the most important thing is to communicate with your players and tell them it's not going to be easy, and secondly do the best you can to take care of the families," said Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher.
The Bears plan to bus players' families to and from the games in Champaign.
Tennessee went 6-2 in Memphis in 1997 but averaged just about 28,000 fans per game.
The Bears will draw better than that, if for no other reason than the long-standing ties between the university and the pro team. Hall of Famer Dick Butkus played for both Illinois and the Bears, and team founder George Halas was a three-sport letterman. Halas initially gave the Bears their blue and orange colors because they were the same as the Illini.
The Bears say they expect to reach the sellout number of 52,057 fans 72 hours before kickoff, ensuring there is no TV blackout in Chicago.
Memorial Stadium will be an improvement in some ways over old Soldier Field, a relic on the shores of Lake Michigan where the Bears began playing in 1971.
Memorial has undergone a facelift, with the expansion of locker rooms and a huge video scoreboard. And in 2001, officials installed AstroPlay, an artificial surface with a grass-like quality.
The Bears practiced on the surface before their first exhibition game, so players could ease the adjustment from the grass of Soldier Field.
Still, some players were slipping and sliding during an exhibition loss to Jacksonville that left the Bears 0-2 in Champaign.
Somehow, the Bears will try to make sure the footing, the fans, the hotel arrangements, the travel and unfamiliar surroundings doesn't prove to be too much of a distraction.
"If we lose, it will be because a better team beat us," Bears general manager Jerry Angelo said. "We're not here to make excuses."