GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Wrecking crews completed demolition of the Metrodome more than two years ago and even as the Minnesota Vikings move into the new U.S. Bank Stadium, the very mention of their former home elicits a strong reaction from most associated with the Green Bay Packers.

It ranges from hate (LeRoy Butler) to conflicted (Ryan Longwell) to politically correct (Mike McCarthy).

For Butler, the former Packers safety, 15 years into retirement hasn't softened his stance, but with McCarthy preparing to take the Packers into Minneapolis for the first-ever regular season game at the Vikings' new stadium on Sunday, perhaps it wasn't the best time to ask how much he disliked the old dome.

"How much I hated it?" McCarthy said earlier this week.

Yes, hated. After all, that's the word Butler used over and over.

"We hated that place so much we felt bad for their players," Butler said. "I used to tell Cris Carter all the time, 'Man, you all deserve another stadium. This is trash.' When that snow came through the roof, I said, 'There is a God. Get rid of this place.'"

Maybe Butler's viewpoint was skewed by his coach Mike Holmgren's inability to win at the dome. Holmgren lost his first five road games against the Vikings and went just 1-6 at the Metrodome in his otherwise stellar run with the Packers.

At one point, Holmgren filed a complaint with the NFL about speakers placed near the visitor's bench that he believed piped in artificial noise.

"They had them there and we asked them to move them and they wouldn't move them," Butler recalled. "It was just terrible. I really hated going there."

Former kicker Ryan Longwell, who played at the Metrodome both for the Packers (from 1997-2005) and the Vikings (2006-11), did not dispute the speaker issue.

"One year as a Packer there were concert speakers on the sideline, and I thought I heard [crowd] sound coming out of it because one of them was right by the kicking net," Longwell said. "And it just seemed to be a lot louder than the previous few years."

Like the Holmgren-era Packers, McCarthy has hinted that not all the noise seemed natural. Before the Packers' final game there in 2013, McCarthy mentioned crowd noise that was "real and not so real."

Still, McCarthy fared well there. His Packers teams went 5-3 in the dome and also won the last two meetings against the Vikings at their temporary home on the University of Minnesota campus.

"I'll be honest with you I enjoyed going to the Metrodome," McCarthy said this week. "It was a heck of a challenge playing in there. I've had some bad days in there. I've had some good days in there, too. The noise was a little too much. It just didn't sound normal, I don't know why. It was just different. It gave you a headache. But we had some great games over there."

In advance of his last game at the Metrodome in 2013, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers called it "one of the three or four loudest places [in the NFL]."

But that was only when the Vikings played there. Packers right tackle Bryan Bulaga was a visitor there in college, too. His University of Iowa teams played the University of Minnesota at the dome before the Gophers moved to TCF Bank Stadium.

"When I played there in college, it was mostly our fans, Iowa fans, in the stadium," Bulaga said. "When we took the field it was pretty quiet. Totally different playing there and playing against the Vikings there."

The annoyance level of the noise depended on your perspective.

"When that loud crowd is for you in that dome, it's a pleasant experience unlike when they're against you and you're just trying to hold a conversation," Longwell said.

"By far the oddest kick I had ever attempted in my NFL career was the first preseason game as a Minnesota Viking. I had a 42 yarder and my whole life in that stadium every time I've been on that field it's been full throttle, full throat, the whole stadium screaming and yelling. This time, it was dead silent. It was so awkward, it actually threw me out of rhythm. And I hit this ugly duck hook ball. I made it, but it was just so foreign to me to be out and it be quiet. It was a really stark contrast to everything I had known being a visitor there."

It wasn't just the noise that bothered Butler. He was no fan of the amenities -- or lack of them.

"By far the biggest complaint was walking to and from the locker room to the field," he said. "We had to walk up like a bunch of stairs down this long corridor and by the time you walked back there and they set the board up, they're blowing the whistle and you had to go back for the second half. I always asked if we could just stay out on the field because this is ridiculous. Sometimes we didn't have hot water. After the game we'd sit there and wait for the water to heat up."

The memories -- most of them bad ones -- flood back to Butler easily. Cornerback Terrell Buckley's blown coverage that led to Minnesota's game-winning field goal in the 1993 game, and backup quarterback T.J. Rubley's ill-timed audible from a sneak to an interception that cost them the 1995 game come to Butler's mind.

"There's some horror stories from that place," Butler said.

It's no wonder the Packers are curious about the Vikings' new home. They expect that the architects did their best to replicate the noise factor. When told there were reports that might be even louder than the Metrodome, McCarthy said, with a smile, "Shocking, shocking."

At least, it should have hot water and a more easily accessible locker room.

"This is a true story: In the mid-1990s, I had a dream and the Metrodome was gone," Butler said. "I hated that place so much I just wanted it gone. I remember telling Eugene Robinson that, I said, 'Man I had a dream last night the Metrodome just disappeared,' and he just started clapping. I hated that place. I'm always complaining, but I think all my complaints were justified when it came to that place. It was terrible."