Suck It, Habs!
With this season quickly snowballing out of control, it’s time to look at another of the Yankees’ more long-term, “invisible” competitions. That is, the thrilling race to win the most North American championships in any major sport!
For most of the 20th century, unsurprisingly, the leader in this was your New York Yankees. But in 1986, a shocking thing happened: they were passed for most championships by the Montreal Canadiens, 23-22.
Now, I know there are those of us who feel that anything played almost exclusively by pasty faced residents of the globe’s most extreme northern climes cannot truly be considered a “major sport.” And hockey’s long stints without a national television contract might seem to bear that out.
Still, contrary to what The New York Times would like to believe, the Big Four of sports is and always will be baseball, football, basketball, and hockey—not deep-sea diving, mixed martial arts, mountain climbing, cross-country skiing, spelling bees, pickleball, backgammon, or curling.
Or soccer.
The Yanks didn’t regain the lead, at 25-24, until after the 1999 World Series. Les Habitants then went into a serious slide, not even making the Stanley Cup finals after 1993, as we extended our lead in this seismic competition to 27-24.
Then, this spring, trouble: the Canadiens were back in the finals. But there—huge sigh of relief—they were polished off by the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Mind you, I don’t normally hold with even having hockey teams in places like Florida. Hockey should only be played by Original Six teams, in majestically gloomy, smoke-filled arenas, between the months of November and March.
But I give a shout-out to the Lightning for keeping the Habs off our backs. Considering the fact that the leader in all-time NFL championships is the Packers, with 13, and the Lakers and Celtics are tied for the NBA championship lead with 17…well, as long as we can hold off Montreal, I think we can probably count on being safely dead before the Yankees are surpassed again.
I know this is very heartening to you all.
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8 comments:
All kidding aside, I was rooting for the Montreal Canadiens. I despise the Tampa Lightning just as much as I despise the Tampa Rays. Do you realize there is a chance that Tampa will win the Superbowl, the Stanley Cup, and the World Series all in the same year? This might even continue for awhile and all three teams could be winning for the forseeable future, maybe 3-4 consecutive championships each.
The despicable Lightning already are a dynasty. I thought the Islanders were going to knock them off this year, but that turned out to be fantasy. The stupid, dirty bolts are so good, in fact, that they might pull off the unthinkable, six consecutive Stanley Cups. Nobody has won more than five straight, right? For the past two years, with a little help from the officiating, the bolts have been so much better than everyone else in the playoffs that it just hasn't been competitive.
The Hammer of God
Here is why that Les Habitants championship record is very tainted: Until the late 70's, before most Americans became established, European and Russians entered the NHL, ANY French Canadian player's rights were owned by Montreal. They had first dibs. That's a huge thumb on the scale considering the majority of hockey players were from the Province of Quebec.
If Roger Maris has an asterisk by his name, the Montreal Canadiens should have *** before every championship won before 1969.
Late 60's*
Ok I know I didn't just read what I thing....
We traded 2 prospects for someone with a 4.43 ERA.... Fuck this team I'm done.
As Joe of AZ said..
The Yankees announced today that they have acquired RHP Clay Holmes from the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for INF Diego Castillo and INF Hoy Park.
To make room on the 40-man roster, the Yankees returned replacement player C Rob Brantly to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
We traded Hoy Park...just fucked up this team called the Yankees...
Hoy...we hardly knew ye. But we got another shit-balling lug nut to fill out the roster of Brian's space barge.
Well, I haven't seen any of the principals in this trade play, but my first instinct is that this trade sucks. We got another bullpen lugnut, with a 5 ERA?
The Hammer of God
I was in the ICU as a medical student watching the 1999 WS. All the med students and residents had piled into one empty room and watched the Yanks clinch. I gleefully proclaimed that the Yankees had passed the Canadiens, only to find out that one of my residents was a Canucks fan. Oh the butt hurt! They really care that we passed them!
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