Heading to the Cincinnati Game

Heading to Cincinnati this weekend with the family. Kings Island amusement park Saturday and Steelers vs Bengals Sunday baby!
Some background. I've been a Steelers fan since mid 90s when I started getting into football in my early college years. Went to school in Williamsport PA where they were the featured home team. Fell in love with guys like Lloyd, Woodson, Lake, etc hammering the hell out of people when that was still part of the game.
Settled in Rochester NY after college and married a long time Buffalo Bills fan. Our 2 boys are 11 and 10 and years ago when they were like 4 and 3 they looked at all the logos and my older boy goes with the Bucs (cool pirate thingy) and the little one goes with the Bengals (loves cats). A few years in and my older on wises up and jumps into Steelers Nation with me. I give my 10yr old credit for hanging in with the Bengals when it would have been easier to jump ship to a winning team.
I wanted to take them to Pittsburgh, but with our mixed bag of fans the Steelers-Bengals match ups make the most sense and the Dec 30th game in Pittsburgh seemed like a bad idea for a few reasons. I got us great seats 25 rows back in line with one of the 40yd markers behind the Bengals bench. When we do get to go to Pittsburgh another year I'll get us close to their sideline if I can.
This will be my second time seeing the team and their first. Looking forward to it, but I admit I am slightly nervous about taking 2 Steelers jerseys along with my Bengals fan into hostile territory. I've seen drunk idiots be relentless at games in Buffalo and age of their targets never mattered.
Praying we see the Steelers team that took the field yesterday!

 

Yeah, that would be screwed if some idiot decided to mess with you, and your sons at the game. The thing with Cincinnati is that they have been losing to us for so long that they have respect for the Steelers. I mean, They hate Pittsburgh, and the Steelers, but they have this inferiority complex from years of losing. With that in mind, they might just look at your Steelers Jerseys in disgust, especially if they lose. This is a big game for them. They gauge themselves against the Steelers. If the Bengals come away with a win, it's gonna be major, over there. But, being that you have two kids, and one with a Bengals jersey, you might garner some curiosity, but I would be surprised if anybody gave you a problem.

 

Have fun at King's Island. I live about 30 minutes from there, and have lots of great memories from going there over the years.

 

I went to Cincinnati once. Wasn't bad. Just the typical razzing you kind of stuff from the guys. It was the "females" that you had to watch out for. One girl started ramming herself into one of the guys that we were with on the way in. Another drunken behemoth verbally accosted us after the game as we were leaving after a win. One guy even apologized to me when I saw that he was wearing a "Piss on Pittsburgh" shirt. But then again, that was 2006 before the playoff meltdown and just before the Carson Palmer injury. I still think that you'll be okay. 99.9% of fans aren't douchnozzles.

 

Good luck, cincy fans SUCK, maybe you'll get lucky and get a seat next to 'crying bengals lady'

 

Just to be in the safe side, you might want to leave the Von Oelhoffen jersey at home. Enjoy the game!

 

Remind them they are a small market city just like Pittsburgh and then ask them how many Stanley Cups they have and how many Super Bowls. Then watch as your children get beat up. Just goofing with you. I know 1 Cinn. fan and he gets so mad when I throw the SB's and SC's in his face but he is quick to remind me how the Reds have manhandled my beloved Pirates over the years in playoff action.

 

I've been to about 7 or 8 Steelers Bengals games in Cincinnati. Just be glad it's not an 8 PM game. Should be fine with the little ones for a 1 pm start. Night games, I would seriously advise against it. Their fans are still PO'd about the Palmer hit and the more they drink the more stupid they become.

Don't worry though there will be at least 25K Steelers fans there.

 

I have been to Cincy quite a few times to watch the STeelers kick ass, it was great.

 

We live an hour north of cincy right now. Went to Steelers bungles game 2 or 3 years ago (the regular season game before the playoff meltdown). We will never go to another game in cincy. The fans were disgusting and we were genuinely concerned for our safety leaving the game. It's like fans of the bungles become different people when it comes to football. We have some great friends who we can't talk football with because they get so mad.

 

Don't wear your Steeler colors is my suggestion. Question for those that got to Steeler Heinz field games. Do the Steelers fans behave obnoxiously towards the other fans that they could escalate into violence ? I've been to Three Rivers against the Eagles and it was the Eagles fans starting crap, causing troubles to where, we all got into a huge fistfight and ejected from the stadium. My friend and I didn't get ejected but the Eagle fans sure did. Also, we went to a Houston Oiler game at Three Rivers. Not many if any Houston fans there so, I can't give comment on that rivalry game. At Heinz field I was their for a Vikings game. Some smack talk with the few Viking fans but all in fun.

 

I don't know...you see every away game on TV the announcers talk about how well Steelers Nation travels because there are a ton of Steelers jerseys and terrible towels waving. We won't be obnoxious so hopefully we can sort of blend into the other away team fans and not draw the ire of anyone looking to lash out.

 

I've been to a lot of games at Heinz including a Bengals game recently and it was fine. no one was being a jerk to the bengals fans

 

I went to the Denver game a few years back (hoping to see Manning play, but no such luck). Took my son, who was the same age as the OP’s at the time.

Great, congenial atmosphere. There were folks in Denver jerseys there, and one even volunteered to take a picture of my son and me with the field in the background. I didn’t see much drunken behavior, but we didn’t really go near the SRO or any hard-drinking areas. Totally fine crowd post-game on the long walk out, too.

 

My firm belief is you can go into any opposing team stadium and your going to get razed for wearing your team colors at some point, I think normally it's in good humor, there will be stupid massively drunk fans who ruin it, of course. Sometimes other teams fans bring it on themselves, it's ok to cheer but don't rub it in or incite anger or turn around and face the crowd (that's never good). That is where trouble starts.

I still would never go to Philly or Oakland to watch a game them people just seem crazy dumb.

I went to Browns games when the Steelers played there a couple times. I got pushed pretty hard while taking a leak, minding my own business saying nothing. That ruined it for me there, as far as going to Cleveland.

The wife and I went on a road trip game to Indy last year. Colts fans were classy bunch, of course Colts where way out of it by that time, so they didn't have too much to get worked up about.

 

I'll be at the Pittsburgh and Cincinnati game this weekend. Leaving Virginia early Sunday morning headed to the stadium. I was there last year as well.

 

i have been to 2 games in minneapolis, and one in kansas city. never had a bad experience at either venue. the one in minneapolis was a pre season game, and i had a vikes fan tell me i was in the wrong stadium, to wich i looked at my jersey, then the field and told him, no, my team is here today. walked away and nothing more was said. had people in KC thank me for coming, because without the steelers fans the stadium would have been empty. Have fun, stay safe, and cheer loud!

 

I'll be watching the game and wearing this:

 

I will never set foot in that cesspool again. Besides, bet those guys are still pissed off from when I pissed on tieir feet.

 

Road trip report?

 

What a great game to be at and overall a really great experience for the family!
Cincinnati is a nice city. My wife and 10yr old went to the museum and bopped around to some different places on Saturday while my 11yr old and I went to Kings Island. Really cool amusement park...we had a blast.
Game day was really great. Got down there pretty early and had a great parking spot close to the stadium. Right away you could tell the Steelers fans were going to represent extremely well. Tons of fans and everyone was cool including Bengals fans. A few people made some comments to my 10yr old Bengals fan in the order of 'make sure you harass your Dad all day', but nothing mean spirited or inappropriate. There were a lot of families and groups of friends that were a mixed bag of Bengals and Steelers fans.
We had great seats and I imagine spending a bit more to get in the sideline section where we were may have kept us away from some of the riff raff you often find in the cheap seats. People around us were mostly older (40s and up) and seemed like respectable people that just wanted to be a part of the game. There were times walking around you almost didn't know who the home team was, but in the seats you could feel the hometown presence.
I kept my cool all game and didn't make a big deal out of great or bad plays. Until that last play and I went nuts...we were on that side of the field in line with the 40 yard line to the left of the play so when Ben dropped back he was almost directly in front of us. I saw him connect with Brown and you could immediately see no one was going to catch him and all the Steelers fans went crazy. Kinda felt like Bengals fans expected it and were used to it.
Their fans were a little more chippy on the way out, but no issues.
Can't wait to get to another game...really gotta get them down to Pittsburgh!