Your stories from the Freezer Bowl

[BengalRed]

I was 30 years old and watched the game from the warmth of our trailer in Lexington, where I still live but not in a trailer. One thing I remember is Merlin Olsen saying that if the Chargers had beaten the Bengals when they played earlier in the season in San Diego the AFC championship game would have been played there, so they had no right to complain about the cold.

[3wt]

I was at the game. A friend of mine had tickets and invited me to join him and a couple of other friends. I was layered good, but it didn't matter. The layering only made going to the rest room a Houdini affair. The game was just amazing - the best game a Bengals team ever played. They just beat the snot out of the Chargers. The atmosphere was truly electric. Everyone was into it. A lot of noise. I remember guys at the end of the game prancing on the dugouts with their shirts off. As bad as the weather was Riverfront was packed out.

I was scheduled to work at the Edwards restaurant (Fifth and Eggleston) after the game. When I got up to leave the stadium I had trouble walking because I had lost so much feeling in my legs and feet.

I made it to the restaurant, but they let me go home. I was a mess. My face was all windburned, I couldn't talk because my lips were frozen and my voice was gone. I staggered in like I was drunk, though I had nothing to drink (didn't want to have to pee). So they just told me to go home. It took me an hour to thaw out enough to drive.

It took me a couple of days to truly feel warm again. What an amazing game!

[grampahol]

I watched it on the TEE VEE! And can clearly remember playing football as a kid in the freezing cold and thinking just how insane it was to pretend it's fun to get hit really hard when you can't even feel your fingertips and getting plowed into rock hard frozen mud.. I think I lost all enthusiasm for pain when a grown man all bundled up nice and warm was telling me,"No pain, no gain" while our team was getting the snot beat out of us, literally.. Ahhh, the good old days of being dumb enough to believe it..
Contrary to popular belief character can be had without having your face mashed into solid frozen mud.