'The Freezer Bowl'

Longtime Bengals fans still talk about the 1981 season AFC Championship game played on Jan. 24, 1982, known by all as “The Freezer Bowl.”

Cincinnati’s 27-7 win against San Diego sent the Bengals to the franchise's first Super Bowl appearance and won a place in football lore for braving the elements.

The temperature at kickoff was minus-9 with an NFL-record wind chill of minus-59.

It was so cold two players almost didn’t make it to the stadium on time.

Neither wide receiver Cris Collinsworth’s nor reserve quarterback Turk Schonert’s car would start as they tried to leave Sharonville the morning of the game.

"Then some guy comes up in a '64 Chevy and says, 'You're Turk. You're Cris, right? What's going on?' " Schonert recalled in a 1992 interview with The Cincinnati and Kentucky Post.

The two Bengals explained their situation, said they were running late. The stranger agreed to drive them to Riverfront.

"He starts going 100 mph down the highway," Schonert said. "I looked at Cris, he looked at me. I think the ride was scarier than the weather at the game - but he got us there on time."

Nothing could have been scarier or crazier than the site the Chargers beheld when they took the field.

Dave Lapham persuaded his fellow offensive lineman to play in short sleeves.

His reasoning was not only did it give the defense less material to grab, it would psyche out the opposition.

He was right about that.

"They looked at us like we were mentally ill," Lapham told The Post.

Lapham said he remembered having second thoughts and early in the game considered getting covering for his arms. He turned to fellow lineman Anthony Munoz and said, "I will if you will." But neither did.

"Nobody," Lapham said, "wanted to be the first to do it."