The 2005 A.F.C. Championship: An 8 Year Wait Was Well Worth It For This Steelers Fan

As I discussed yesterday, the loss by Pittsburgh in the 1997 A.F.C. Championship to Denver still remains the most heartbreaking pill I’ve ever had to swallow as a life-long Steelers fan.  I can say with brutal honesty that after said loss, I wanted nothing more than for Pittsburgh to someday beat the ever-loving piss out of Denver in the Playoffs on their way to a Super Bowl title.

Thankfully, my long-awaited wish finally came true in January 2006 when the Steelers got their revenge against Denver in the A.F.C. Championship Game which was played in The Mile High City.  So if you’d like to hear my thoughts and memories from watching the game and some personal anecdotes as well, hit that “Continue Reading” button and let’s get started:

Introduction

Words could not describe how happy I was that the Steelers were only one step away from Super Bowl XL.  In the previous two weeks, Pittsburgh had gone on the road to beat the #3 and #1 Seeds in the A.F.C., and only the #2 seeded Broncos stood between them and history.

I had waited eight long years for the Steelers to get another crack at Denver in the Playoffs, and I was so stoked that they could throw a wrench in the Broncos’ 13-3 season at Invesco Field at Mile High that day.  One thing about the game did make me sad however, and that was the fact that I was living in Hawai’i at the time and away from my Mom and the members of her family that are Steelers fans.  They were the biggest reasons I grew up a Steelers fan, they hated the Broncos too, and they understood full well how important this game was.  Moreover, as I alluded to in my last article, my Mom and I lived in Denver for 9 years, disliked everything about the Broncos, and wanted nothing more than to see Denver and their fans devastated in their own home stadium