OT- Most difficult championship to win? (A rainy Saturday time killer)
They always say the Stanley Cup is the most difficult to win, but I was curious what the board thought. How do you rank the difficulty of winning a championship amongst the big 4 US sports (MLB, NHL, NBA, MLB) , the World Cup and of course the BCS Trophy and NCAA Hoops trophy?
For extra credit, which championship do you feel has the best trophy of the 7 options listed above and which is the worst. For me the Stanley Cup is the best and Larry O'Brien Trophy(NBA) is the worst.
What are your thoughts?
The Stanley Cup is an amazing trophy. I feel the Commissioner's Trophy (World Series) is up there too because regular season success as well as postseason success is emphasized because like....only 8 teams make the playoffs in baseball.
NCAA basketball is probably the hardest to win because you have to make the field, then win 6 straight. Usually you would play 4 ranked teams, and 2-3 top 10 teams. Only 1 team out of 300 or so wins. The Cup is easily the coolest trophy.
If thats what makes it hard, I'm sticking with the CFB National Championship. You can go undefeated, but you have to win by a lot when you should, and have to play in a respected conference. Even if you do go undefeated you might still have to split it or might not get anything. And afterwards, you have to hope nobody was on the take that the NCAA knows about and try to take away your championship.
Edit: Stanley Cup for the win. Nice seeing so many Wings.
is my vote. Since it is single elimination and we all know anything can happen at any time (see George Mason), it is difficult to predict. Butler was an inch away from winning it all this year, very few people thought they would come that close and we all thought they were nuts when we looked at their brackets.
The Stanley Cup is definitely the best trophy, but in terms of hardest to win, I'd go with the BCS National Title. One slip up, and you may be out of the picture. One unimpressive win, and you may be out of the picture. Start the season too low in the polls, and you may be out of the picture... so on, so forth.
Les Miles calls, and raises you one slip up.
I said one slip up, and you may be out of the picture. If you lose a game or two, it gets pretty difficult to make an argument that you deserve a shot at the championship, with LSU obviously being the exception. Not too many other major team sports can say the same thing.
The hardest to win has to be the NCAA hoops championship. You have to bring your best three weekends in a row and have to avoid injury and since it's basketball foul trouble too. Also, they have the worst trophy of the bunch.
As for the best, it has to be the Stanley Cup trophy. The cup is by far the best.
I don't know about the most difficult, but there's nothing more exciting than playoff hockey.
Memorial Cup.
Each of the three major junior hockey leagues in Canada (OHL, WHL, QMJHL) has four 7-game rounds to determine the league's winner. The three champions then play a round-robin tournament with the other champions and the tournament's host team to determine a winner.
To quote Wikipedia: "It is considered one of the hardest trophies to win in sports, as there are currently 60 teams competing each year to make the tournament, and a player has a maximum of five years to win it due to age restrictions."
For a Cleveland sports fan I have to say that they are all very diffucult to win
Since 1970, only one team—Lucky Les Miles and LSU—have won a NC with two losses. 17 teams have won outright or shared a NC by losing only one game. 29 teams have won outright or shared a national championship by going undefeated. Basically, to guarantee yourself a spot in a NC game you need a perfect record; just one loss and your odds go down dramatically. It's hard to achieve that level of consistent, game in/game out perfection with teams that are comprised of kids not too far removed from high school.
Stanley Cup - 2 months of war in the playoffs
I'm sure there are many that could be considered mathematically more difficult, but the sheer amount of physical and mental effort required to win the Cup makes it the most diffucult to win of all the major championships IMO.
Because ninety percent of the rulebook is thrown out for the playoffs, players have to play through injuries that would keep a lot of us in a hospital bed, or at least home from work for a week or two. It takes talent, physicality, luck, and endurance to win. Detroit had the best team in the league for a decade, and didn't win close to ten titles.
More so than in any major sport, the best team on paper doesn't always win.
Baseball has the fewest teams to make it in, so that's probably my vote. You can still have 5 seeds make the finals some year, or at least have hope to. No such thing in the MLB.
But NCAA sports are generally pretty rough. Any time you play a single elimination bracket, I think that puts huge pressure on the top teams. They can't have a off night playing against other decent to top teams.
It's kind of why I like baseball in college. They play a mixed playoff format with double elimination in week one, a series in week 2, a double elimination tournament in the open of the CWS, and a series in the CWS final. You have to prove you have a full team with depth that can win series or tournaments.
No salary cap, long season, only one wild card.
would give teams a decided advantage to making the playoffs in most cases if they spend more than their competition
Ie. Yankees and Red Sawks.
Doesn't hurt them if they've never experienced it. It's just the status quo. If you even the playing field with a salary cap, it's getting rid of the salary cap that hurts teams. Yeah, technicallity, but that's my interpretation.
the salary cap! I know it'll never happen, and I'm a big tigers fan, but baseball would be so much better when you knew no team could buy it's way into the playoffs.
in my opinion, anything that's not single elimination can't be considered. yes, you have to win more games but you don't have to be perfect the entire way, you get nights to screw up and still win. ncaa basketball is tough but the fact that one guy can make such a difference makes it easier. you don't need an entire team to come together, you can ride one guy most of the way or for a game or two if you have him. to be the toughest championship it has to require perfection, or damn close to perfection, and require multiple people coming together to get the job done. the closest to this in my opinion is BCS champtionship.
NCAA football, followed by NCAA basketball. Football because doing perfectly doesn't even guarentee you'll be able to even play for the thing, and basketball because its a 64 and growing team tournament where making the thing as a top seed is all fine and good, but you still can't afford to slip even a little because if you do and the other team doesn't, you're done.
NHL and NBA are certainly difficult, but they are best of seven. I've seen teams get screwed out of best of sevens, but by and large, you don't deserve to be moving on if you can't best a team 4 out of 7 times.
Concur on the coolest trophy though. Nothing beats the Stanley Cup. Nothing.
Stanley Cup, then World Series.
I would have to go with college basketball, that tournament is insanely difficult to get through.
Coolest trophy and hardest to win.
Non sports-related:
- Roommate Chicken (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=roommate%20chicken&defid=2734936). You try going an entire year in a house of guys without taking out the trash or doing dishes
- Delgado Sandwich Trophy (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Delgado%20Sandwich&defid=2175781). That was an uncomfortable Thanksgiving...
beats out the BCS championship in a squeaker for me. Even though it is easier to get into the basketball tournament, it is damn hard to be on top of your game for 6 games in a row.
Coolest trophy? Definitely the Stanley Cup!
That, and the Stanley Cup.
Does the Triple Crown count as a single championship?
I'm going to go with the World Cup.
First and foremost, seeding is only emphasized for the top eight teams in the FIFA world standings, which means the draw could incorporate any possible random combination of teams with different strengths.
Furthermore, simply qualifying for the WC involves months and months of preparation, travel, and more travel, and whittling down the field from 190-ish countries. Then when it comes to the finals, only one of the 32 teams has a distinct "home field" advantage (the same could be said of the NCAA tourney, however).
Considering only seven of those 190-ish countries have actually won the Cup, it should highlight just how tough it really is.
Even if you manage to get by Super Macho Man, Mike Tyson is always there to ruin your shit.
SEC Football Championship, duh.
for everything said above but also because you only get a shot once every four years so you have fewer chances ...
best trophy is the stanley cup (saw it in chicago today and it was awsome fwiw) and it is not close