Best sports stuff of the 00's

[infrared41]

With the decade coming to an end I thought it might be kind of cool look back and discuss the last ten years in sports. I figure we could list favorite moments, biggest stories, best games, etc. What innovations or new stuff we liked or didn't and so on... It doesn't need to be a list or anything. It's just a good conversation starter.

Just to get things rolling I'll list a few of mine;

Favorite moment: (here's a shocker) Ohio State beating Miami for the National Championship.

Great Baseball moment: (another shocker considering how much I bash them) The Red Sox coming back from 3-0 to win the pennant in 2004.

And so on...

[raysox]

Best Game- Boise State vs Oklahoma.

Best Season- 2008 Rays. That was the most fun I've ever had. That run was magical.

[NEW.ERA]

Favorite moment: 2004 Stanley Cup run that was a magical spring.

Best game: 1. 2007 Fiesta Bowl Boise State vs. Oklahoma, 2. December 5th, 2009 Cincinnati vs. Pittsburgh, 3. Super Bowl XLIV

[Gary]

my alltime favorite moment was the seventh game of the 2001 World Series when Luis Gonzalez hit the bopper over 2nd base as he scored the winning run to win the World Championship for the Arizona Diamondbacks

[floydnimrod]

George Mason making the Final Four is definitely a big moment of this decade for me. And all of the games NEP mentioned.

Kobe scoring 81 was also a moment I'll remember for a while.

[Brave-Bird 08]

worst moment:

Miami getting called for the worst pass interference call to send the Natl Champ Game into overtime.

And then Ohio State winning

[TFoA]

My faves:

NBA: Bulls vs. Celtics, game 6 of the 1st round of the 2008-09 playoffs. That's easily one of the best games I've ever seen, let alone in this decade. The buildup to that game with the great games before then, with the added pressure of it being a playoff game, plus the dynamic of the Bulls' David to Boston's Goliath just made it a great game. Plus it went 3 OTs, which always cranks up the grama in games. All in all, it was definitely the best NBA game of the 00s, & also reminded me as to why I love the NBA.

NFL: Super Bowl XLII. Not the best game, or even the best Super Bowl of the decade (That still goes to Rams/Titans [it happened in 2000 so dammit it's eligible ]), but it was probably the biggest. One team was gunning for perfection and seemed like a shoo-in to win after completely ransacking the rest of the NFL (& beating the Giants in Week 17 ot boot.), the other had basically knocked off every big name team in the NFC, yet was still a huge underdog. The underdog comes through in spectacular fashion, & proves why championships aren't given in the buildup to the game, they're earned on the field.

MLB: Diamondbacks-Yankees 2001 World Series. Just an outstanding series to watch, especially considering all that New York had been through just a month before. Kim's collapses in the games that were played in New York & Jeter becoming "Mr. November" had you thinking that the Yankees would be a team of destiny that would bring home another championship, especially in this time. But the D-Backs wouldn't be denied, & never gave up, even when they had to stare the best closer in the game in the face while trailing in Game 7. Classic ending to a classic series, & a much needed distraction in those times.

NHL: I know I'm not too much of an expert on this...but I'd go with Game 6 of the 2004 Stanley Cup: Lightning vs. Flames.

I know it's probably painful for the Flames fans to look back on this, especially considering The Goal that Never Was, but it was just a great game to watch. That, plus the crazy, crazy, CRAZY Sea of Red just summed up what hockey was all about to me.

College Football: 2006 Rose Bowl, Texas vs. USC. Another prime example of why we don't just award championships to teams in media coverage. Otherwise, we'd be talking about USC thumping Texas & the two Heisman Trophy winners Matt Leinart & Reggie Bush being the greatest QB-RB tandem that ever played college football...ever. Instead, we now have the memories of two teams going back and forth at each other until the final whistle, & Vince Young basically making a mockery out of not only the USC defense, but pretty much everybody that doubted that Texas team.

College basketball: Memphis vs. Kansas, 2008 National Championship. I watched this game with like 12 of my dorm buddies. When Chalmers hit that shot to send the game to OT, all of us basically went bonkers in that small ass room. Just a great game to watch, very entertaining.

Soccer: USA vs. Spain in the Confederations Cup. Easily the most excited (and proud) of a soccer result that I've ever been. Considering what the USMNT had to do just to play Spain, & how they beat Spain (who were on a TORRID streak of winning international games), it was amazing. It was mostly Spain's doing, but this game had me on the edge of my seat. Sure, it was "just" the Confed Cup, but it meant a lot. Just awesome.

But my overall favorite moment was Game 4 of the 1st round of the 07-08 NBA Playoffs: Hawks vs. Celtics. The whole series basically revitalized the Atlanta Hawks as a respectable NBA franchise, but this moment topped it all. I can't tell you how many Hawks games I went to where the arena was empty & you could tell that the other team was treating it like a working vacation. To see Philips Arena transform into a loud, raucous, intimidating venue was just surreal. Even more surreal than seeing that there was an actual basketball team playing in Atlanta now. It was just awesome. This was the moment that capped it off for me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_exgTRJSJfA

Pretty good decade. Hopefully the next is even better.

[Gary]

just thought of best game of the decade. Super Bowl XLIII the Cardinals may have lost the game but easily had you on the edge of your seats. reminds you of the titans-rams super bowl

[raysox]

Soccer: USA vs. Spain in the Confederations Cup. Easily the most excited (and proud) of a soccer result that I've ever been. Considering what the USMNT had to do just to play Spain, & how they beat Spain (who were on a TORRID streak of winning international games), it was amazing. It was mostly Spain's doing, but this game had me on the edge of my seat. Sure, it was "just" the Confed Cup, but it meant a lot. Just awesome.

That was a lot of fun, but this moment, IMO, was the soccer moment of the decade.

[NEW.ERA]

One match that was better then the rest albeit an Italian victory was the 06' WC Semi Final between Italy and Germany.

The game was on the brink of penalties as the Italians couldn't solve Jens Lehmann and the Germans couldn't solve Gianluigi Buffon but as the clock struck the 119th minute Fabio Grosso strike all but assured that the hosts wouldn't be going to the final then as the 120th minute longtime Italian international Del Piero made it a final.

Sorry for the synopsis.

[IceCap]

I can narrow it down to six....

Super Bowl XXXIV, January 30, 2000. What a game. One yard to short, that's all you need to sum up the first "iconic" Super Bowl I watched.

2001 World Series, October 27–November 4, 2001. I hate the New York Yankees (calm down people, it's sports hate). So watching them lose to the Arizona Diamondbacks was awesome. I remember watching Game 7 and being as excited for a Yanks lose as I probably would have been for a Blue Jays win.

2002 Olympic Ice Hockey Gold Medal game, February 24, 2002. Fifty years in the making, with perhaps the greatest team ever assembled, Canada wins it all and reclaims its sport. The early adversity they faced added to ultimate triumph. This probably has to be my favourite. It was just so cool to see a sport unite a country, my country, like that. Though I do feel bad about having to exclude the Women's team winning the gold as well, seeing as they had to beat the Americans and the officials, but the fact is the Men's win just overshadowed it.

2004 ALCS, October 12–October 20, 2004. Another Yankees lose, but I was also genuinely happy for the Red Sox and their fans. Really, the World Series was an afterthought after that ALCS.

Super Bowl XLII, February 3, 2008. I was in a bind here. The Patriots, perennial conference betters of my beloved Chargers and recently exposed cheaters, or Eli "I won't play for the Chargers" Manning? Ultimately I swallowed my Chargers pride and rooted for Eli and the G-Men. The game was just unbelievable. On top of that the resulting 18-1 Pats recorded basically invalidated every ESPN "The Patriots, the best team ever?" segment they had over the course of the season. It may not have been the best Super Bowl game ever (it's a toss up between Super Bowls XVI and XXXIV), but it's probably the most memorable.

97th Grey Cup, November 29, 2009. I may not have liked the end result, and yes the last play does kind of knock the game down a few notches, but it was still an outstanding game (probably the best football game played that Sunday ). The atmosphere, the Riders showing up the Als in the first half, and the Als comeback really all came together for a very special football game.

[tBBP]

Look at my screen handle...I don't think it's a stretch to count SB37 as my #1 moment of the '00s. 2002 season...My Buccaneers won it all.

Beyond that...

2008: Tiger Woods winning the U.S. Open, in a nineteen-hole playoff--that's a whole extra round plus one hole--and all that WITH A SHREDDED KNEE LIGAMENT. I was sitting over in the desert watching this with my mandible on the rocks in awe at that performance. In that same year, Summer Olympics. Gr8est of all time...that's about the only way I can sum up Michael Phelps and absolute domination.

2003: Florida Marlins beat NY Yankees, in New York, for World Series title. I had JUST moved to Pittsburgh (hadn't been there a solid month), with Marlins jersey in tow, first exposure to the north (at the time I didn't realize Pittsburgh wasn't as "northern", or was as backwards, as it is)...so the Florida pride was on shine. Plus, at that time, southerners in that place were pretty rare from what I could tell, unless they played ball over at UPitt.

2001: Arizona Diamondbacks defeat NY Yankees in World Series. At the time, Byung Hyun Kim was one of my favorite closers--to this day I have no idea why--but seeing Jay Bell cross that plate to score that run to win that World Series, for a team whose first manager was also a local cat (Bell graduated from high school in Pensacola; Buck Showalter was born in nearly DeFuniak Springs and raised up just north of Pensacola in Century, where a good chunk of my fam still lives) was a moment of civic pride for me.

[FiddySicks]

[Spammy]

Favorite moment: (here's a shocker) Ohio State beating Miami for the National Championship.

That was my worst nightmare.

[BigMac12]

my alltime favorite moment was the seventh game of the 2001 World Series when Luis Gonzalez hit the bopper over 2nd base as he scored the winning run to win the World Championship for the Arizona Diamondbacks

Same here.

[infrared41]

Favorite moment: (here's a shocker) Ohio State beating Miami for the National Championship.

That was my worst nightmare.

Glad we could be a part of it.

[infrared41]

Here's another great baseball moment I thought of while watching WBC highlights on MLB Network. How about The Netherlands beating the Dominican Republic. Twice?

[Jigga]

With the decade coming to an end I thought it might be kind of cool look back and discuss the last ten years in sports. I figure we could list favorite moments, biggest stories, best games, etc. What innovations or new stuff we liked or didn't and so on... It doesn't need to be a list or anything. It's just a good conversation starter.

Just to get things rolling I'll list a few of mine;

Favorite moment: (here's a shocker) Ohio State beating Miami for the National Championship.

Great Baseball moment: (another shocker considering how much I bash them) The Red Sox coming back from 3-0 to win the pennant in 2004.

And so on...

Homer!

[KevinMcD]

NCAA Football:

game was the best for me, when Turner Gill was speechless and crying on the interview and then goes over and hugs AD Warde Manuel, so amazing, hopefully he gets Kansas a National Championship in the near future. However nation wide I would say the Texas-USC Rose Bowl.

NHL:

Game:

. What a game, trading goals back and forth, Sabres tie it up with 1:40 to go Shorthanded. Smolinski's takes back the lead on the same powerplay and has that smirk on his face then Connoly comes back to tie it and Drury scores 18 secs into OT. Probably the best NHL game i've ever watched.

Goal:

is probably my favorite goal of all time. Overtime series clincher, shorthanded vs the hated Senators after blowing by Alfredsson. This whole series was the best of the decade for me.

The 05-06 Sabres is my favorite team of all time, gritty hard working team that was only stopped by 3/4 of their starting Defense getting injured vs Carolina.

MLB:

The 2001 World Series when the D-Backs beat the Yankees.

NFL:

The Giants beating the Patriots or the Rams beating the Titans.

NCAA Basketball:

All the cinderella stories, George Mason, VCU beating Duke, etc.

[Sport]

My favorite sports moments from this decade in no particular order:

Ohio State-Miami Fiesta Bowl January 2003. One of the most exciting games I've ever seen. Nobody gave Ohio State a chance in that game. The banter leading up to the game was similar to what we're seeing with Cincinnati-Florida from this season. Nobody thought OSU could hang with the Hurricanes and the game came around and to everyone's surprise the Buckeyes played outstanding. There was a questionable call in OT at the end, but Glenn Sharpe held Chris Gamble the entire way to the endzone. It wasn't pass interference but holding. The field judge called holding, the official said the wrong penalty on the microphone. People freak out over how late the penalty flag was thrown, but the official was cleared after the game and it was the correct call. Anyone who still debates this has a lot of video evidence against them. The right team won that game.

Super Bowl XXXVIII Carolina-New England. First of all, it was a fantastic football game. It's one of the best super bowls every played, but nobody talks about it because of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. That halftime incident has made tape delay for live events standard. Also a guy streaked during the game.

NLCS/ALCS 2003. That was a great time to be a baseball fan. You had two classic droughts that had a really good chance at coming to an end, but both teams choked about as dramatically as a baseball team can. The world series was a good series, but after those LCS's the world series has become a footnote.

ALCS 2004. Another great time to be a baseball fan. The Yankees were still the evil empire and the Red Sox hadn't won a championship so their fans were still slightly bearable. Watching a team go from 3-0, to 3-1, to 3-2, to 3-3 to then ultimately lose the series was incredible. I doubt we'll ever see anything like that every again.

Stanley Cup Finals 2006. The finals that nobody watched. The first finals after the lockout featured two small market teams in Edmonton and Carolina. It was an interesting matchup with the cinderella Oilers and the Hurricanes who had come from out of nowhere to have a surprising season of their own. Then the games were all very entertaining. The shootout in game 1, Ty Conklin's blunder after rolosson got injured for the series. The Canes taking a 3-1 series lead only to let Edmonton back in it to force a game 7. I loved that series even if nobody around me had any idea it was going on.

Stanley Cup Finals 2009. Penguins-Red Wings. I hate both teams but it was fantastic hockey. I never once thought the Penguins would win until it was actually over. I couldn't believe what I was watching.

2007 March Madness. Ohio State riding Greg Oden and Mike Conley to the national championship game. It was very exciting to watch your favorite team go that far in the dance even if the players were more or less "rented".

Super Bowl XLII Patriots-Giants. It's not often that I root for a team from New York, but I did not want to hear about how good that Patriots team was for forever and ever. I was pretty pumped to see them lose. It was if their arrogance got the best of them and I love when that happens.

US Open 2008. Rocco Mediate v. Tiger Woods in the 18 and change playoff. It was incredible television. It's such a shame that Rocco wasn't able to beat Tiger.

Least Favorite:

-Kimo Von Oelhoffen crashing into Carson Palmer's knee

-Both Steelers super bowls

-the 2007 Boston Red Sox

-Both the 2008 and 2009 stanley cup finals. Just a lose-lose situation

-Columbus Blue Jackets having to play the Red Wings in their first playoff appearance and subsequently getting manhandled.