It was game four, overtime, when Sabres lumbering winger, Brad May, picked up the puck at the Boston Bruins blue line and skated in on goal. “May in over the line,” screamed the Sabres play-by-play man, Rick Jeanneret. “Here’s May going in on goal. He shoots, he scores! Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Brad May wins it in overtime!”
The excitement that day, April 24, 1993, wasn’t only because the Sabres had won a playoff game. What had really whipped Rick Jeanneret and Sabres fans into such a frenzy of celebration was the idea that the curse might die. For ten years, the Sabres had not won a playoff series, and a shining moment for the franchise had finally come. Next up, they were promptly swept out of the playoffs by the Montreal Canadiens.
The curse lived on.
Sometimes in professional sports, when a team has a history of losing, fans and media alike look for a scapegoat. Fans try to figure out how or why their team has been cursed. Whether or not the scapegoat could have any effect whatsoever on the playing field is entirely beside the point.
The most infamous curse in American professional sports, “The Curse of the Bambino,” died in 2004, when the Red Sox vanquished the New York Yankees and then the St. Louis Cardinals to win baseball’s World Series. Many other curses are alive and kicking. There is “The Curse of the Billy Goat” for the Chicago Cubs and even “The Curse of Rocky Balboa” for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Then, of course, there is the curse on the city of Buffalo.
Unlike Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia, where their other sports teams win championships, there is no comfort for Buffalo sports fans. These fans have suffered through an inconceivable amount of tear-jerking moments watching their teams. To this day, no professional sports team in Buffalo has ever won a World Championship. In fact, there is only one other city in North America besides Buffalo that has had two major sports franchises in their city longer than 30 years without winning a World Championship: San Diego.
The lore of “The Curse of the Bambino” is simple. Red Sox owner and theatrical producer Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. He used the proceeds to finance the production of the Broadway musical, No, No, Nanette. The musical itself was a bomb, and Frazee sold the Red Sox three years after he sold the Babe. His sale to the Yankees supposedly made Ruth so angry with the Red Sox franchise that he doomed them from beyond the grave.
Since the Babe was sold, the Yankees have won a mind-blowing 26 World Series. The Red Sox, on the other hand, had an 86-year championship drought, painfully losing four World Series, until the dry spell ended in 2004.
To be sure, plenty of people believe “The Curse of the Bambino” and other sports curses are pure nonsense. Jerry Sullivan, Buffalo News sports columnist, shares this idea. “I believe most curses are the product of bad management,” he says, “I don’t think there’s ever been a well run team, with great general managers and judgers of talent, who was cursed.”
Curse or no curse, many Buffalo sports fans laughed when they heard Boston fans whining about “The Curse of the Bambino.” Adam DeRose from Grand Island says, “Big friggin’ deal” about the pain of Boston fans.
Many people share DeRose’s sentiment because during those 86 years, Boston sports fans watched their Bruins win five Stanley Cups, the Celtics win an astonishing 16 NBA championships, and the Patriots win two Super Bowls (and another in 2005). Not to mention that the Boston baseball franchise won a total of six World Series before 1918, when Ruth was sold.
The Buffalo Bills share with the Red Sox the shame of losing four championships, but have surpassed the Red Sox in embarrassment by doing it four years in row. These four years of Super Bowl losses are quite possibly the apex of sports humiliation and degradation. When the topic of the four losses comes up, DeRose asks, “What the fuck? Does God hate us?”
The weight of losing four Super Bowls in a row is a difficult burden to bear for most Bills fans, but it is made even worse by the most notorious event in team history: “Wide Right.”
For those who don’t know, the Bills lost their first Super Bowl, Super Bowl XXV, in the closing moments on a missed field goal. This extraordinarily painful event has come to define an entire era of Bills football. It is even the central feature in a dark and popular cult classic film by Vincent Gallo, Buffalo ’66.
The kick, missed by usually sure-footed Scott Norwood, has also been spoofed in the movie Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and on a skit in the television series Robot Chicken. This cataclysmic football event has even caused some to label the hex on all Bills Super Bowl losses as “The Curse of Scott Norwood.”
Jerry Sullivan doesn’t lay the blame for the loss of Super Bowl XXV on Scott Norwood. He rests it squarely on the coaching staff. “Super Bowl XXV, I think, was the worst coaching job in a big football game ever,” Sullivan says, “I’m talking about fatal flaws, starting with giving the play-calling over to Jim Kelly. I thought that in the end, it became Jim Kelly against [Bill] Parcells and [Bill] Belichick. It ain’t a curse. That’s real smart guys, against a guy who wasn’t dumb, but was in over his head.”
Another sports team with an infamous curse is the Chicago Cubs. The Cubbies reputed curse is known as “The Curse of the Billy Goat.” As legend has it, the curse started in 1945 during the World Series between the Cubs and the Detroit Tigers.
Vasili Sianis, a Greek immigrant, who owned a nearby tavern, now famously known as the Billy Goat Tavern, had two box-seat tickets to game four of the 1945 World Series. Sianis had decided to bring his pet goat Murphy with him to the game, and had purchased a ticket for the goat and himself accordingly. Sianis and the goat were allowed entry into Wrigley Field, the Cubs’ home stadium. Before the game, they had even walked about the playing field. They were then escorted off the field, but after an argument, they were allowed to stay in the seats Sianis had purchased.
Sianis and Murphy were allowed to take their seats, but the duo was ejected from the stadium before the game ended. The decision, made by then Cubs owner Philip Knight Wrigley was said to be about the offending odor of the goat. Sianis was so outraged at being ejected that he is said to have placed a curse upon the Cubs that they would never win another pennant or play in the World Series at Wrigley Field ever again. To this day, Sianis has been totally correct.
However, fans of Chicago sports have quite a bit of history to take solace in. Beside the two World Series the Cubs had already won, the White Sox have won three World Series and the Blackhawks have won three Stanley Cups. And, if all that wasn’t enough, let’s not forget the Chicago Bulls dynasty and dominance of basketball in the 1990s, winning six NBA championships, otherwise known as the Michael Jordan era of basketball.
For Buffalo Sabres fans, who have nothing to take solace in, the most painful point in team history is probably the event known as “No Goal.” In the sixth game of the 1999 Stanley Cup finals, Dallas Stars winger Brett Hull scored a goal in the third period of overtime. At the time, his skate was visibly in the goaltender’s crease. This goal won the game and the Stanley Cup finals for the Dallas Stars.
According to NHL rules at the time, a goal was illegal if the scoring team had any player with any body part in the crease before the puck entered that same zone.
The goal has been questioned by many in and around hockey. NHL officials still maintain their story that it was a legal goal. They say that Hull’s shots in the goal crease constituted a single possession of the puck since the puck deflected off Sabres goalie Dominick Hasek.
“Page 2,” a column on ESPN’s website, has ranked the call as the fifth worst officiating decision in the history of sports.
This is definitely one moment that has remained a festering wound for Sabres fans. To this day, in and around Buffalo, you can still find t-shirts, hats, and even bumper stickers that carry the “No Goal” designation.
Early in the 2005-2006 hockey season, Brett Hull officially retired from hockey. It was an occasion celebrated by some fans in Buffalo. “My buddy and me were at the bar when we heard about Brett Hull retiring,” says John Malara, a self-described Sabres fanatic. “We did a shot of Crown Royal to celebrate, and then another shot because the memory of ‘No Goal’ made us sad.” The Sabres curse has yet to take a name, but Malara suggests, “The Curse of Brett Hull.”
Another curse talked and written about in sports is the “Curse of Rocky Balboa.” The lore is that by erecting the statue of the fictional Rocky Balboa instead of the Philadelphia-raised, Heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier, the Eagles have been permanently cursed. This curse is supposed to last as long as the statue still exists. No one is really sure how the fictional Rocky Balboa, or the still living Joe Frasier, are affecting the Eagles. But, the Eagles have lost both Super Bowls they made it to, and have not won an NFL championship since 1960.
Though Philly fans have plenty of sports victories to be consoled with including the three NBA championships won by 76ers, the two Stanley Cups the Flyers have won, and the single World Series won by the Phillies.
“Sometimes I think it would be easier to be a [Detroit] Lions or [Milwaukee] Brewers fan,” says DeRose, “because you know your team will always suck. The Bills and Sabres get close so many times, only to break your heart in the end.”
Buffalo has had a rich tradition of sports, but can simply never win the big one. The worst part for many Buffalo fans is how frequently their beloved teams have been close, raising everyone’s hopes, only to blow it in the end. As for the other perennial loser, San Diego, they will just have to take comfort in their beautiful weather, Pacific Ocean beaches, and thriving economy.
