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As you may or may not be aware the Washington Capitals just lost to Montreal in the first round of the play-offs.
Now why is this important enough that it gets an article on its own you ask? Well, Washington won the Presidents Trophy.
This trophy is feared by many to be “cursed”, and considering that only 8 teams to ever win it have gone on to lift the cup; it makes sense for fans to get a little bit scared.
Still, to cheer up those fans who just watched the Capitals who played well all season fall to Montreal; here is a guide to some of the other curses affecting Hockey, and perhaps just a few other sports too.
The Curse of 1940
This curse is a mythical reason for the New York Rangers not winning a Stanley Cup; was broken when the Rangers finally won a cup in the 1994/5 season.
The curse originated in 1940, when the New York Rangers won the cup; around the same time as the owners of Madison Square Garden paid off their mortgage. The papers to this mortage were ceremonially burned in the cup, which led many fans to believe that the “sacred” cup had been desecrated; and it had angered the “Hockey Gods”
However, more realistically, there are many theories behind this supposed curse; the team faced diffuclty when players went off to war; Madison Square Garden management cleared them out during the playoffs for a circus however most people rationally believe it was just bad management.
The Buffalo Curse
This is regarded as a multi-sport curse that prevents any team from winning the cup of anything; be it the Stanely Cup, the Superbowl or whilst the city had an NBA team, the NBA championship.
This curse however seems to not prevent teams from winning trophies such as the Presidents Trophy and various AFC championship titles.
The EA Sports Curse
This is now known as the Madden curse; however this curse affects anyone to appear on the front cover of an NHL video game. A good example, During the 1998-99 season, Lindros had acheieved 93 points in 71 games, until his season came to an abrupt end with a collapsed lung during a game in Carolina. The following season he was removed of his captaincy after criticizing team doctors and missed 10 weeks to post-concussion syndrome. During the playoffs he suffered a major concussion; and missed the season after due to contract problems.
Notably, its believed this curse has ended since the lockout.
The Toronto Maple Leafs: 1967 NHL Expansion Curse
When the NHL decided to increase their amount of teams from 6 to 12; the currently fairly dominant Toronto Maple Leafs went from a 13 title winning team to a team that hasn’t won the cup since.
The Ottawa Senator Draft Curse
Did you know that any player chosen by the Sens in a draft pick has never gone on to win the Stanley Cup?
There is one technicality here, with Stanislav Neckar appearing on the cup for Tampa Bay. This player however spent most the season injured (he played just 6 games), and despite not meeting the criteria to have his name engraved was placed on the cup as a “mark of respect”.
So I hope that if your a Caps fan, this has made you feel better. If it hasn’t, then I am sure a road trip to Pittsburgh is in order so you can see justice take place.
I am KevKev, and I hope you enjoyed reading about these curses.
Welcome to The Definitive Fan – The online guide from PowerPlayGoal.com to the types of fans who you’re likely to meet (or not meet) at a game.
Some of these fans clearly have a true passion for the game, others, well, they are just there for something to do.
Fan Type #14 – The Film Fan
Bio:
The film fan has just seen a film at the cinema or on TV that featured hockey. Now it may have been a re run of The Mighty Ducks, a bootleg copy of Slapshot 3 (lets face it, no one is buying that film) or worse still; they just saw Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) in childrens “hit” comedy The Tooth Fairy.
Suddenly, they claim to love hockey. They think to know what its all about, even support a team- usually one that doesn’t play hockey; confusing either baseball, football or basketball team names for a hockey one; or in some circumstances, will claim to support the Mighty Ducks, not realising that they have since changed their name.
They even begged mum to take them to see a game, which they went to; the mum spent the entire time chatting on the phone, whilst the kid eats tonnes of sugary food and then spends the entire game getting in the way of people who actually want to watch the game.
In some cases, they even try playing hockey; then give up realising that its not so easy to play and that the movie lied to them epically about what real hockey is actually like.
Characteristics:
Often young kids, running through to 18 year old males. They will see a poster/standee/advert featuring hockey and shout/say/scream “ahhh coool”.
Favourite Team:
Miami Dolphins, New York Mets, LA Clippers, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim
Other:
Eat too much sugar, laugh at fart jokes, and think that hockey is made up of angry people who like to fight; and they have no real interest in any sport(though this again varies)
I’m KevKev, and this is PowerPlayGoal.com