Sports' Greatest Curses

The recent news of Vince Young donning the cover of the new Madden Football game has once again brought up talk about the Madden curse. The Madden curse is just one of the many superstitious beliefs in sports. There are many curses in the sports world.

Buffalo Sports Curse
Some people believe that the entire city of Buffalo is cursed when it comes to sports. The belief comes from the fact that the Buffalo teams have failed to ever win the championship in a major sport. The belief that Buffalo is cursed increased when the Bills went to four straight Super Bowls and failed to even win one and the Sabres lost the seventh game of the Stanley Cup on a controversial call.

Curse of 1940
In 1940 many people believed a curse led to the New York Rangers not winning the Stanley Cup for 54 years. The New York Rangers were very successful before the curse and won Stanley Cups in 1928, 1933, and 1940. After the win in 1940 the Madison Square Garden Corporation burned the mortgage inside the bowl of the Cup. The Stanley Cup is believed to be a sacred object to hockey fans and when the Rangers were no longer winning after that incident many people believed that the "hockey gods" were angry at the Rangers for desecrating the cup.

The Curse of Muldoon
The Curse of Muldoon was a curse on the Chicago Blackhawks that would not allow them to win their division from 1938 to 1967. During a heated argument between owner Frederic McLaughlin and head coach Pete Muldoon, Muldoon said to McLaughlin, "Fire me, Major, and you'll never finish first. I'll put a curse on this team that will hoodoo it until the end of time." Muldoon was fired and the Blackhawks did go nearly thirty years without coming in first place. Many people thought the story was true but the person who reported the argument later admitted that it never actually happened.

The Curse of the Bambino
The Curse of the Bambino stems from the Boston Red Sox making one of the worst trades in baseball history. The Boston baseball team was extremely successful at the start of their history. Boston won five out of the first fifteen World Series including three Championships with Babe Ruth on their team. At the time the New York Yankees had not won any Championships. After the trade Babe Ruth breathed life into the struggling New York franchise and the Yankees went on to win 26 Championships. Meanwhile the Boston Red Sox didn't win another World Series after trading Babe Ruth for another 86 years.

The curse was heightened by the fact that it was usually the Yankees themselves that would eliminate the Red Sox from their championship hopes as well as inexplicable moments like the ground ball that went through Bull Buckner's legs in the 1986 World Series.

The Curse of the Billy Goat
In 1945 the Chicago Cubs were in the World Series and the owner of a tavern named Billy Sianis had tickets to the game. Sianis brought along with him his pet goat. At first Sianis and his goat were allowed in the game but eventually the Cubs manager had them removed. Sianis then supposedly placed a curse on the Cubs that they would not return to another World Series. The next 20 consecutive years the Cubs finished second place and didn't go to the World Series every single year. It has now been over sixty years and the Cubs still have not been back to the World Series.

Madden Curse
The Madden football games are the most popular football video games and possibly the most popular video game of any sport. Up through the 1998 version the Madden football games featured John Madden on the cover. In 1999 EA Sports decided to put players on the cover. Since then almost every player who has been on the cover has either played very poorly the next season or got injured or both. One year Barry Sanders was on the cover and he ending up retiring before the season even began.

Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is a very popular sports magazine and the curse that goes along with it is much like the Madden curse (the Madden curse probably actually stole the idea of its curse from this one) . Even though it is an honor to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated many players, or even entire teams, have suddenly played poorly immediately after being featured by Sports Illustrated leading to many people to believe that being on the cover of Sports Illustrated will curse you.