Your most painful sports moments

[HedleyLamarr]

The Aces beating the Gladiators was a painful sports moment for you?

[infrared41]

The Aces beating the Gladiators was a painful sports moment for you?

Who are the Aces and Gladiators?

[BLUELANDbeliever]

The Aces beating the Gladiators was a painful sports moment for you?

yes. First time i had seen a successful pro hockey team live. I was at every playoff game at GWT and went to the road game against the StingRays, and 1 against the Ever Blades.

[zpqmaowl]

4. 2010 Western Conference Quarterfinals, Game 1, Canucks vs. Kings. This close to being up 3-0 in the series.

3. Game 4, 2004 NLDS.

2. Game 4, 2008 NLCS. Matt Stairs.

1. 2011 Western Conference Quarterfinals, Game 3, Kings vs. Sharks

[Lebda4Norris]

The Leafs missing the playoffs by one point two years in a row.

It was the Leafs' last game in 2007. They needed a win and an Isles loss the next day. They were facing their bitter rivals, the Habs. Can't remember the details, but it was an exciting back-and-forth game, eventually won by the Leafs, 6-5.

It was the 3rd period of the Isles game, and they were winning by 1. The Devils pulled the goalie and tied the game up with 3 seconds left. It ended up in the shootout and a Dublowicz poke check ended it.

[rvrdgsfn]

Now I know I'd said one on the national level but now I go to a local level....

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It was 1999 & the Richmond Renegades were in game 7 of the Kelly Cup finals (ECHL) against Mississippi Sea Wolves who were coached by Bruce Boudreau. The game went into many of overtimes & I stayed up listening to that game... The game went until 1 A.M. when Valentino Passereli kicked the puck into our own net & we lost that game... I turned off the radio & cried myself to sleep, we had the Wolves where we wanted them & we blew that series. I still can't believe I remember that guys name, but with a name like that & move like that, I think its hard to forget...

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The other was most recent, with the Flying Squirrels championship run, I went to game three & the place was packed. We started off strong until around the top of the 6th inning to which the Squirrels were just blown out by errors & runs, we went on to lose that game & the championship at home.

[Funky Bunky]

Anaheim Ducks:

-2009 WCSF vs Detroit game 7: It hurt. No other Ducks game comes close to being as heartbreaking as this was for me.

Los Angeles Angels:

-Still MIGHTY already summed it up.

San Diego Chargers:

-2007 Divisional round vs New England: The Chargers were really good that year, going 14-2. Tomlinson had one of the best years for any running back in NFL history. That same year I went to my first Chargers game, and it was the first year that I had watched every game. We just had to draw the Patriots in the first playoff game.... that team had the best chance of winning the super bowl in the past decade.

USC Trojans:

-2006 Rose Bowl vs Texas: One of the best NCAA football games I had ever seen, and the Trojans were just a win away from winning 3 consecutive National Championships. (3 AP, 2 BCS) Those SC teams from '04-'06 were really fun to watch.

Arizona Cardinals:

2009 Super Bowl vs Pittsburgh: My 1A NFL team. I'm pretty sure everybody here watched that game, so you know what happened.

[Shumway]

"My desire to exit the game is greater than my desire to remain in it." - Barry Sanders

Also, I happened to be enjoying my DisneyWorld vacation until:

[UnclearInitial]

- 2007-08 Serie A last day: ASRoma is leading the league at halftime, with Inter Milan tied at Parma, but Ibracadabra worked some of his magic and Inter won

-2009-10 Serie A: Roma is leading the league, and only need to win their last 3 games to win the league, but Sampdoria beats them at home, giving Inter the lead, and on the last day of the season Roma is leading the league at halftime (sounds familiar?), and Inter manages to pull a win in a game they absolutely shouldn't have won.

-2008 Plaxico Burress- Giants were 10-1 with a great chance to repeat, but Plaxico shoots himself and the Giants lose 3 of their last 4, and then lose to the Eagles in the divisional round. Even more maddening because the Giants had beaten every team that would have been in their path that season.

Miracle at the Meadowland II- The Giants had that game,and most likely the division in reach,leading by 21 with 8 minutes left but Micheal Vick decides to blow up and Desean Jackson gives them the death blow. I was so shocked I didn't talk for half an hour, except to shout "Micheal :censored:ing Vick", "DeSean :censored:ing Jackson", "Matt :censored:ing Dodge", and "Tom :censored:in Coughlin"

-2010 ALCS Game 4- If Girardi pulls Burnett, the yankees go to the World Series.

-2002 World Cup- A bull call reduces Italy to 10, the Koreans then score with 2 minutes left to tie, and then beat Italy with a Golden Goal.

-2011 NBA Playoffs first round, Knicks at Celtics, Games 1 &2- Ray Allen scores the game winning 3-pointer in game 1 because Kevin Garnett trips Toney Douglas and no ref sees it, and in game 2 the Knicks aren't able to get the ball to Melo in time

[Jer15]

The 2010 NLL Finals. The Rock finally got back to the Championship game just to be flat on the night.

The 2009 OHL Finals. Brampton was loaded with talent in Hodgson, Duchene, Grachev, McCullum, ect. For the first time ever, the team had a real buzz about them. As each round of the playoffs passes the arena got louder and fuller. Scouts were aplenty. Then we hit Windsor in the finals. It was like hitting a solid cement wall. Taylor Hall and Ryan Ellis were surrounded by good to great talent. Had it been any other team in the OHL that year, Brampton would have won, but Windsor was on their way to a Memorial Cup championship.

The worst part about it? The buzz wore off just as fast as it came and the next season Brampton went right back to drawing 2000 people a game.

[epper]

1. The Music City Miracle

2. Greg Moore's Fatal Crash

[Silent Wind of Doom]

I suppose I've been fortunate in that most of the memories of the teams I've really followed closely have been good ones, whether it be Aaron Boone, Jim Leyritz, or David Tyree. Good lord, I kept coming up with awesome things when trying to put this list together, but as I thought about it more and more the emotions started to come back as I recalled some of the moments that really stuck a dagger in my heart. Here's my list of the top 8.

Number 10:

The 2008 AFC Wild Card Game: Miami Dolphins - Baltimore Ravens

"Over Before it Began"

I fairly recently started actually following football closely, as I will expound on later. When I was very young, I picked my favorite football team rather arbitrarily, although I've come to appreciate the Dolphins franchise more and more as I've grown up. This was the first time since I'd started following closely that the Dolphins had made the playoffs, a huge improvement over the previous 1-15 year. I'd never gotten to watch them in the playoffs before, and was excited, but the dreams were crushed quickly. I didn't even get to actually see the game, as I had my meeting at the time of the game. I was greeted afterwards with a final score of 27-9. In the years since then, they have missed the playoffs and are now halfway through a terrible season.

Number 9:

The 1995 American League Division Series: New York Yankees - Seattle Mariners

"The Play, the Game, and the Series That Saved Baseball In Seattle"

Ugh. This was disappointing as a kid, but it's more the thinking back on it now that's painful. Growing up in the 90's, my favorite player was Don Mattingly. In extremely unfortunate circumstances, he became the face of the team during a period where Steinbrenner's meddling reached critical mass and began to hurt the team more and more as he traded away young talent for high-priced veterans who crapped out on the team. Imagine having a career that spanned from the year after a World Series appearance to the year before the team wins it all.

They finally picked up thanks to the removal of Steinbrenner from day-to-day operations for a while, allowing Gene Michael to work as he wanted to work, and were ready to make a run. Then the strike came. Finally, in 1995, the Yankees returned to the playoffs, Mattingly's first in his career. Unfortunately, they became the first great Yankee team to fall victim to the short series, winning the first two, then having the Mariners tie it at home. The final blow came in an RBI hit down the left field line, the throw home just making it short and putting the Mariners into the ALCS. The play saved the Mariners from folding or relocating, but finished the career of Don Mattingly.

Number 8:

The 1994 Baseball Season

"The Strike"

1995 saved baseball in Seattle. 1994 killed baseball in Montreal.

One of, if not, the greatest "what-if" in baseball history. The season was cut short and the playoffs cancelled when players and ownership couldn't come to agreement, leading to the 1994 Strike. The Yankees were just picking up the pieces and were poised to make a run for it all. On the other side, the Montreal Expos were burning like wildfire through the National League with their best team in franchise history. Besides that, there were many players who were challenging the records of old.

Unfortunately, the strike occured. The Yankees would have to wait another year to go to the playoffs, and, as mentioned above, Mattingly would never get his ring or even a season win. The biggest victims, however, were the Expos, who never reached the height they reached that season, and the fans were fed up. Lack of support would lead to the Expos moving to the Capital to become the Washington Nationals in 2005.

Number 7:

The 2001 World Series: New York Yankees - Arizona Diamondbacks

"America's Team Loses"

This is the opposite of the 1994 and 1995 incidents. This is a lot easier to swallow today, but was painful to watch at the time. New York City had come under attack in September, and many were lost. Baseball was put on hold, but came back and the sports two New York teams became the poster-children for healing people's hearts after the incident. People held up signs in Fenway Park, telling the people in New York that everyone, even Bostonians, were New Yorkers now. When the postseason came, the Yankees still stood, and they came back from the brink of elimination against the A's with the help of Jeter's flip play and made their way past the record-setting Mariners to get to the World Series.

After an enormous tragedy had befallen the city of New York, and crews still sifted through the rubble, people found escape in baseball, and New York had a team in the fight for the World Series. They flew a torn and ripped flag from Ground Zero above the Stadium. The NY behind home plate was blue with a red outline and white stars. George W. Bush came in a flak jacket and threw out the first pitch. The players and coaches wore caps with the emblems of the NYPD and FDNY on them. It was destiny. The Yankees were there to "win one for the Gipper". They were the team of destiny.

And they lost. In the second most amazing series I've ever seen, they lost. In the biggest David and Goliath story I can remember at the moment I'm writing this (without thinking too hard about it), they lost. The small expansion franchise out of Arizona beat the juggernaut Yankees who had won the Series the previous three years and were carrying the City of New York on their back and the hearts of millions in their hand. It was glorious, but heartbreaking. And it proved that everyone, even Mariano Rivera is human. Those three middle games, though, were just amazing. Perhaps we should just take a page out of the Red Sox book and say that we won it in 5 games 3-2 ;D.

Number 6:

The 2011 AFC Championship Game: New York Jets - Pittsburgh Steelers

"Wait 'Til Next Year"

With the Dolphins in the state that they are, I usually closely follow the local teams, especially the Jets, who is the favorite team of my family down in Florda (irony FTW). Given their history, I root hard for them to make it, and this was the most heartbreakingly close of their falls that I've seen. We were all watching it intently, and it was rough at the half, but the Jets started slowly coming back, coming to within a touchdown to win it, but just fell painfully short.

Number 5:

The 2004 American League Championship Series: New York Yankees - Boston Red Sox

"Reverse the Curse"

Ugh. Just... Just ugh. I think that's all I need to say. I was fine with losing in 2003 to the Marlins, because really, the ALCS that year was the main event. As they say, the Yankees-Red Sox WAS the 2003 World Series. This was painful to watch, and the A-Rod play depicted above, in which he slapped the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's hand, only to be called out after the umpires conferred on the illegal play, just epitomizes the futility and the feeling of hopelessness of those last four games. And they finished it in Yankee Stadium.

And, seriously, you couldn't just bunt to Curt Schilling? Not even once?

Number 4:

The 2008 Baseball Season: New York Yankees

"The Closing of The Old House"

It was sad to see the House That Ruth Built be closed and eventually demolished. It was such an amazing and electrifying place. The problem, though, wasn't with the fact that it closed, but the way it closed. It went not with a bang, but with a whimper. The Yankees, for the first time since 1993 did not make the playoffs. In its last year, the Stadium, which had seen so much postseason grandeur, didn't even see playoff play.

Number 3:

The 2002 American League Division Series: New York Yankees - Anaheim Angels

"The End of the Dynasty"

2001 was the first year since 1997 that the Yankees didn't win the World Series. The team had achieved great heights, and the fans became complacent. That's why it was a huge shock to them when they met the Anaheim Angels in the 2002 ALDS.

2002 was the first year in a while that the Yankees had a bad start, although it would become the standard in the coming years. Mike Francesa told the fans that this wouldn't be like other years, that it would be a rollercoaster ride to get to a division win and get out of the hole they'd dug. He called it "The Summer of Excitement", and it was.

The first round was a small formality on the way to bigger and better things, but the Angels suddenly gave baseball a reality check, shutting down the Yankees' season in four games. After losing the World Series in 2003 and the ALCS in 2004, the Angels did it again to the Yankees in 2005, before the Yankees finally got the rally monkey off their back, beating the Angels in the ALCS in 2009.

Number 2:

The 2006 American League Division Series: New York Yankees - Detroit Tigers

"Hear them roar! Tigers in four!"

This one hurt more than 2002, though. Yankees fans watched intently, hoping the Tigers would fall to the Wild Card so we could avoid having to play the powerhouse Twins. The local radio stations referred to the Yankees lineup as "Murderer's Row Plus Cano". They were stacked and staring down their barrel at the Tigers.

In Game 1, the Yankees steamrolled them. All looked clear. Then came the rain delay in Game 2, shutting down Mike Mussina and forcing the Yankees to go to the bullpen early and lose the game. Then they went to Detroit and the enormous Comerica Park ate up what would be a Yankees home run in any other park over and over again and the Yankees never won another game. I'll never forget that call when they won. It was so sudden and jarring. All analysts had said that there was nothing standing between the Yankees and Mets on their way to another Subway World Series, but it would not be. It was so jarring an end that I wasn't ready to be sportsless, and it was this year that I started actually following football.

Number 1:

The 2007 American League Division Series: New York Yankees - Cleveland Indians

"The Bug Game"

HOW CAN YOU NOT STOP THE GAME?!?!

The series started off with a bang, Johnny Damon hitting a leadoff home run. Unfortunately, they couldn't hang on and lost the game. Then came Game 2. The Yankees were leading by one in the bottom of the 9th, and in came Joba Chamberlain. The young pitcher was a phenom who had not yet given up a run, earned or unearned, the entire year. With two outs and a man on third, in came the midges.

A wind from Lake Erie brought a swarm of the small insects into the stadium. While the Indians sent a fresh batter up to the plate, the Yankees' fielders had been running around and were covered in sweat, which attracted the bugs to them. Their primary target was Joba, who was having trouble seeing through the cloud of midges around his face. They crawled all over him, attacking his eyes and nose. And the umpires made no move to stop play, despite the obvious hinderance. Trainers came out and sprayed every player down with bug spray, but to no avail. Joba's next pitch went wild, skipping to the backstop and bringing the tying run in from third.

Joba got out of the inning, and by the time the Indians took the field, the midges flew off to other places. The Indians won the game in extra innings and while Roger Clemens's valiant effort brought the Yankees a win in Game 3 at home, the Indians would finish them off in four.

One pitch. One pitch. If Joba had gotten the guy out, the Yankees would have had a 2-1 lead going into Game 4 and would have had two chances to elminate the Indians. They'd owned the Red Sox the entire season, and the Colorado Rockies laid down and died in the World Series. 2007 was their year. It should have been the Yankees' return to the championship, but instead they ran into their third straight first-round exit, and had to sit at home and watch the Red Sox win instead.

George Steinbrenner had been in declining physical and mental health, but a reporter found his way to him. He got the quote from Steinbrenner before the series that Torre would lose his job if the Yankees didn't win. With this ultimatum out in the public, it put the franchise in a tough position, and would lead to the eventual leaving of Joe Torre. The beloved manager that had led the Yankees to four championships and six pennants was forced to leave the team, and it all came down to that one pitch.

Why didn't the umpires stop play? How can you expect a pitcher to pitch under those conditions? Joe Torre would later state that he regretted not pulling his team from the field, and the fans would always regret that he didn't as well. The game shouldn't have continued.

And THAT is my most painful sport moment.

[TheOldRoman]

The Fighting Illini basketball team losing in the championship game in 2005. The Illini were undefeated until the final game of the regular season, where they lost on a last second shot at OSU. They were down 15 in the 4th quarter of the Elite 8 against Arizona with four minutes left when they had a miraculous comeback to win in OT. They went into the championship game 37-1 against a UNC team who only survived Villanova due to referee shenanigans. In this game, the refs not only allowed Sean May to elbow and blow people over without calling fouls, but they called fouls on Illini big men for looking at May funny. May was allowed to dominate and UNC built a 15 point lead. Illinois staged a furious comeback to tie the game at 70 with a little over a minute left. Carolina, clearly shaken at this point, moved down the court and Rashad McCants threw up an ill-advised 35 footer early in the clock which was tipped in off the rebound. The Illini lost 75-70, and one of the greatest college basketball teams of all time came home empty-handed. Illinois still has the "proud" distinction of being the greatest basketball school to never win a national championship.

[ltjets21]

#6 Jets Lose to Raiders in 2002 Divisional Round

#5 Hawaii gets smacked in 2007 Sugar Bowl

#4 Mets lose 2006 NLCS

#3 Jets lose to colts in afc championship game

#2 Jets lose to steelers in 2004 divisonal round......2 missed field goals the game was ours

#1 Jets lose to Steelers in afc championship game.......we almost came back

[ltjets21]

Ryan McD The kicker was Doug Brien not Scott Hall....never heard of Scott Hall maybe your confused with John Hall

[TheOldRoman]

Ryan McD The kicker was Doug Brien not Scott Hall....never heard of Scott Hall maybe your confused with John Hall

Scott Hall may not have missed those kicks, but he is certainly the bad guy.

[Cujo]

John Hall:

Scott Hall:

Daryl Hall:

[Windstorm]

Game seven of the 2011 Stanley Cup finals is definitely the most painful. I couldn't believe the Canucks played so poorly, especially in the most important game in franchise history.

The 2011 NLL final was also pretty disappointing, but not because the Stealth were bad. It just would have been really cool to see back to back championships, and they were so close to doing that.

I can't really think of anything else right now. Maybe when a blown call ended game two of the Northwest League championship series this year, but Vancouver went on to win anyways.

[sc49erfan15]

What's even worse is he traveled.

[DrAwesomeberry]

1. Game 6 of the World Series

2. The moment I stopped being a Cowboy fan