As promised, I will detail, in excruciating minutia, my Monday Night Football experience. OK, maybe not that detailed, but I will give you an overview of the craziness that was the Pittsburgh Steerlers (remember an earlier post and my LOVE of the Steelers) v. the Denver Broncos.
Let me give you some back story here. I have known for 6 years that the Steelers would be playing in Denver this year. I saw them play there in 2003 and knowing how the NFL schedule works, every team not within the same division will play each other a minimum of every 3 years, alternating the city. So, 2006 Denver went to Pittsburgh and in 2009, Pittsburgh came back to Denver (and they'll be back in 2015, just an FYI).
Knowing this, I watched all off-season for the second that tickets went on sale. Long story short, Ticketmaster and the whole ticket purchasing process is a SCREW JOB. I had 3 people online, logged into Ticketmaster and the second they went on sale we all tried to get tickets for this game with absolutely ZERO success. I call bullshit. Bullshit on how they sell tickets, make 'em available, the works. And the NFL wonders why they have stadiums that aren't sold out. It's because true fans that want tickets can't get them unless they go through a scalper and pay about 3-5 times their face value.
Alright, I'll get off my soap box now. So another long story short, I got tickets through my brother, who got 'em through a client, for basically face value. Three rows off the field in the North end zone. SWEET! And while not being able to see the other end of the field as well as I'd like, I found the experience of our seats really cool. At one point, when the Steelers were starting their drive back by the end zone, they took a time out and were standing around about 10-15 yards ahead of us. I always knew that football players were big, but some of them are freakishly large humans.
I went to the game with my mom, who is a big time Steelers fan as well. As a matter of fact, when the Steelers rolled into Denver and laid the smack down on the Broncos in 2006 for the AFC Championship, my mom and I went to that game together too. We got to the stadium this time about 30 minutes before kick-off on an absolutely gorgeous November evening. I was able to wear a long sleeve shirt under my old school Greg Lloyd jersey to the game. A perfect night for watching some football!
Just before the game starts, I hear someone yell "Chris", then "Seeley", and as I turn around I see a face I recognize, but it doesn't register. After about 10 seconds, I realize that it is the brother of the Princess (see earlier posts)! I didn't recognize him immediately since it was out of context. I never expected to see someone I know in a crowd of 76,000, and here is a person I know sitting 3 seats behind me. Kinda crazy.
So the game starts and as usual, there is a lot of good natured jawing back and forth with Broncos fans. It is pretty fun and people are usually pretty cool about it. As the first half progresses, which is fairly close, a guy sitting behind my mom is pissing her off pretty badly with his verbal diarrhea, so I am now having to reel in a 57 year old woman. Nice. It should be the other way around, shouldn't it?
The second half starts and the Steelers start putting the hammer down and begin pulling away. I hear two crazy women yapping at each other starting to get more intense. This is important as at the end of the third quarter or the beginning of the fourth quarter, shit hits the fan.
The action was down at the other end of the field, so a bunch of Steelers fans were standing up, looking down field at the action, myself included. The next thing I know, I am being hit in the back by something. I turn around to find a woman with a Steelers jersey on had been pulled or jumped over 2 or 3 rows of people onto a woman with a Broncos jersey. Hair was being pulled, slapping, scratching, this was a full blown, booze-soaked cat-fight! We were hollering for security, without getting immediate assistance. I was hoping that one of them would get their top ripped off, but that only happens in bad cable TV shows and in dreams.
The fight probably only lasted about 1-2 minutes, but it felt like it lasted a lot longer. Security finally showed up and took the two women away (and I use the term women very loosely in this case, as the obviously both barely qualify) and a few that got sucked into the melee. As the cops were "cleaning up" the boyfriend of the Steelers jersey wearing woman, though he was more akin to Jabba the Hutt wearing full Seattle Seahawks gear (did he know what game he was at?), pushed a cop. Holy SHIT, I thought, it is ON LIKE DONKEY KONG! The cop turned around and said "Did you just push me?" To which Captain Dumbass replies, "You pushed me first" and with that, he pushes the cop again! In no time at all, the cop has got this guy's left arm up behind his back and has his head slammed down on a seat back, with his forearm pushing down on the Captain's neck. Meanwhile, we miss TWO series of the football game.
A few of the hooligans finally were allowed to come back to their seats and everything was chill in our section for the rest of the game. Oh, yeah, the Steelers WHOOPED the Broncos ass too! All in all a great night. The Steelers won, I went to the game with my mom and a rad cat-fight broke out!
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