I am one for getting into the pageantry of a major sporting event. It's one of the main reasons I'm here and the Big Ten championship game was no doubt one of the highlights. The tradition hasn't been going long to crown conference champions with a playoff game but with the way the people embraced it, even in 4 degree weather, you would've thought it had been going a hundred years.

The event actually started a day before the game with people swarming in from their respective camps in Ohio and Wisconsin to take in the city and go to the fan zone. The fan zone is a cordoned off, long and wide section of city designated to all things college football. Merchandise, kids' activities with the pig skin, past player appearances, live bands, hot food and of course plenty of beer was on offer. It's a great way for people to get themselves enthused about the event but it's not as if they need any extra cheering up. I consider those willing to casually sit in temperatures that make a Melbourne winter seem like Spring time for barbeque about as cheery as it gets. Seriously, there was no amount of icy cold breeze the city could throw at them to slow them down.

Nearing game time on the Saturday the crowds only got thicker all over the city. With the amount of red Ohio State Buckeye jerseys, jackets, hats and chants you could have sworn we were in Columbus, Ohio and on the footsteps of the famous campus. Those keen Buckeyes well and truly outnumbered the Badgers from Wisconsin, even though at times it was hard to tell as both teams' colours are red.

I attended my first pre-game pep-rally at the convention centre and I have to say I was impressed. Aside from giving the centre a real campus field feel to it with the fake field and rollout bleachers for people like me and the thousands of others to sit and watch the Ohio State band was amazing. You may have seen these bands perform on TV and they look great but to see them up close and hear their bass trembling music was a real joy. I would have thought with a marching band consisting of over three hundred members they would at least produce one false step. But there wasn't one. They marched to perfection as they blew there trumpets and bashed their drums, playing a heap of old campus classics to the adoring, swaying, clapping and singing audience. I knew exactly zero words to any of the school's songs but felt the need to clap and sway and at least attempt to look like I knew what was going on. The fact that I was in awe of how well in sync the band was probably helped. Some of the college's cheerleaders are also amazing athletes with the way they somehow safely catapult their bodies in the air like they're being shot out of a cannon.

The fans of college football teams, at least these two anyway, are so ridiculously one eyed. Think Collingwood supporters with a full set of teeth. This is so much so that one of the Ohio State songs claims "We don't give a damn about the whole state of Michigan." which is aimed at the school's most hated rivals, the Michigan Wolverines. The Ohio State crowd didn't stay to hear the Wisconsin band, they refused to acknowledge the any of the highlights of the Badgers on the big screens and at the game the Badgers team was made to feel like they were well and truly on enemy territory.

At times the sixty thousand strong inside Lucas Oil stadium sounded like eighty or ninty thousand on Preliminary final day at the MCG and with a final, recording breaking, blowout score of 59-0 going the Buckeyes' way there was hardly a need to boo. And as for me, whose ticket ended up being smack bang in the middle of a section of the most vocal Buckeyes, I had no choice but to go with flow to ensure my safety. Well not really safety but I had an urge to cheer and the Buckeye team certainly provided many of opportunites. A long forty yard touchdown pass and a run that went almost the entire length of the field by a running back for the touchdown had people literally diving on each other around me. And this was all in the first quarter, making the game's result a foregone conclusion before the masses started queuing for their half time refreshments.

My hands were red raw at game's end with all of the high fives and I actually got a vocal lesson from an experienced fan at how to maximise my noise level during a third down situation for the opposing offense. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's about making as much noise as possible so the quarterback of the opponent has a hard time calling his plays to his teammates. The key for me was to cup my mouth and breathe deeply from my stomach, letting the air our slowly with my call of "awwwwwwwwwwwwww". The aim is to hold the tone for the duration of the setup of the play. That can be longer than thirty seconds sometimes and a couple of times I ended up coughing.

I know, it still makes no sense to me either. I don't know if that's how the noise is spelt either so forgive me for I could be wrong.

The city of Indianapolis has more sports bars than they do fast food restaurants, I'm not kidding. Everywhere you turn there's a bar from the Colt's grill which is dedicated to the city's NFL franchise, to the ever popular Hooters bar. It would ensure that no man or woman is left devoid of alcoholic options. Needless to say business is booming here right now.

On a completely unrelated topic the Indianapolis zoo is rated one of the top ten in the U.S. so I had to go and check it out. Despite the winter closing off plenty of exhibits there was still plenty on offer like the sea life area where kids can literally put their hands in water around sharks and the desert area where I nearly crapped myself in the snake pit. Like seeing something so totally gross you don't want to see yet can't look away I cringed and shivered taking in the site of a snake stalking and then consuming it's dead mouse pray. All of the kids around had me covered for squeamishness by far.

-1 degrees outside for thw short walk from the football stadium to the hotel. Just an FYI.