OT - All-Time Best Games in Sports
 

Here are my top 3 in order (watched all three games in their entirety on TV):

1. USA vs. USSR (1980 Lake Placid Olympics Hockey Game) - When the USA team went ahead in the 3rd period with nearly 10 minutes to go, that had to be the longest 10 minutes of my life. The countdown seemed to go on forever, minute by minute..........

2. 1994 Stanley Cup Semi-Finals Game 7 (NY Rangers vs. NJ Devils) - The whole Rangers mystique of 1954 being their last Stanley Cup - holding a one goal lead as the clock ticked down under 10 seconds in the 3rd period, you just knew they would find a way to lose and, sure enough, the Devils scored with 8 seconds left sending the game into overtime. I recall the Devils having a breakaway in the first overtime and the shot on goal beat the Rangers goalie and hit the crossbar and bounced away from the net, again nearly a loss for the Rangers. Of course, we all know how it ended in the second overtime with the Matteau goal...........

3. 1985 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Game (Georgetown vs. Villanova) - Georgetown was so dominant that year and so much better than Villanova that a miraculous shooting night by Villanova, 89% from the floor in the second half and 78% for the game was only good enough to squeak out a 2 point win and the National Championship over Patrick Ewing and the Hoyas.........

Anyway, those are my top three, how about yours?

1991 World Series game 7. 1-0 final in the 10th, Morris CG shutout

1980 USA-USSR Hockey
1960 World Series Game 7
Super Bowl XLIII

Though Game 6 gets the pub, Game 7 of the 1975 World Series had a young BBCARD1 on pins and needles.

1986 game 6 ws

Game 6 2011 WS. No question

That Lake Placid miracle would have to rank high. I was really into hockey at the time and subscribed to international hockey mags written in Swedish and Finnish so I knew it was inconceivable that we could beat that mighty Soviet team. Was at work when the game was underway and went home without hearing a word until almost home and heard some cheers from nearby and the thought crossed my mind that it could be our hockey team. I had a brand new VCR which was pretty cutting edge in 1980. Sat down and watched my tape. What a game! It was somewhat spoiled because it was always in the back of my mind that the cheers I heard were because we had already won. Still what a game! My heart was in my throat as Al Michaels counted it down and I cried.

1992 CBB Duke vs. North Carolina - Laettner's miracle shot
2011 World Series Game 6 - David Freese ties the game and wins the game

1988 World Series game 1 ( Kirk Gibson homer off of Eckersley and call by Vin Scully)

1. 1980 Miracle on Ice Team--USA v. USSR.
2. 1991 Game 7 World Series.
3. 1976 Game 5 NBA Finals, Suns-Celtics Triple Overtime.

My own eclectic Top 10 list:

2007 Fiesta Bowl

1986 WS Game 6

1996 CWS Championship Game

2008 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Game

2008 Wimbledon Men's Final

1997 Nebraska/Missouri football game

2005 NLDS (Houston/Atlanta) Game 4

1996 Women's Olympic Gymnastics team finals

1994 Olympic Pairs Figure Skating finals

2010 Super Bowl

I think you are on the same page as myself. I might put game 6 of the 86 WS and the Giants beating the undefeated Pats right up there
I guess those would be my personal top 5.

2005 World Series
Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Game 4
:D

I was one of the winners for the ticket lottery in Houston. I chose to buy tickets for Game 5. :(

Hey Phil, the last cup victory for the Rangers before 1994 was actually 1940. The Red Wings won it in 1954. It was the longest drought between cups for a team in the league, a dubious record now held by the Toronto Maple Leafs, who last drank champagne from Lord Stanley's mug in 1967. Interestingly, Winnipeg holds the record now for a current NHL city, as the last Stanley Cup won in the Peg was in 1902. Whew! That's a long time!

Maybe its because I'm Canadian, but the 1980 US victory has never meant much to me.
The summit series in 1972 between Canada and USSR, the first major meeting of eastern and western hockey powerhouses, was everything. Also, the famous 1975 new years eve clash at the Forum between the Habs and the Soviet Red Army is generally considered one of the greatest hockey games ever played. But to each his own.

As for baseball, the 2004 alcs between the Red Sox and Yankees is hard to beat!

2005 Champions League final - AC Milan vs Liverpool

AC Milan led 3-0 at half-time. Liverpool respond with 3 goals in 6 minutes in the 2nd half. Milan have countless chances to win it including a point blank save of a Shevchenko shot by Dudek in the dying seconds of Extra Time. Liverpool complete the win on penalties.

You're right, Brent. I confused the 54 year drought with 1940, making it 1954. My mistake....

I'm with you on the baseball series too

While I am too young to remember it, this is regarded as the greatest college football game of all time by many...especially around here.

1971 Nebraska vs Oklahoma (The Game Of The Century)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtzRZxnVLU4

1986 Masters. Jack's back nine on Sunday. I still get chills watching the replay.

A. Baseball: the 1952 World Series

B. Hockey: the Stanley Cup finals in the early 90s where the Patrick Roy-led Canadiens seemed to win game after game after game in overtime.

C. Hockey: I cannot remember the year or possibly years, but some of the early 50s Montreal Canadien Stanley Cup playoffs where Rocket Richard scored several of his 6 overtime game-winning goals.

D. There was a Cubs - Reds game around 1977 that was very high scoring on both sides, with the Cubs somehow coming out on top that time.

I could name several truly classic auto racing gems, but methinks this would not be the proper forum. No disrespects. ---Brian Powell

PS---this may not be germane, but the 1976 Olympic Games 5000 meters final, with Finland's Lasse Viren somehow staying ahead of New Zealand's Rod Dixon and Dick Quax. I saw that on TV---wow.

Another 2 running gems were a 1969 Pac 10 race between Washington State senior Gerry Lindgren and Oregon freshman Steve Prefontaine. Dead heat after 6 miles, though they gave the nod to Mr. Lindgren.

1973 NCAA Cross Country championship---again, Oregon's Steve Prefontaine, now a senior, fought it out tooth and nail for the six mile race with Western Kentucky's Nick Rose. Pre finally pulled ahead in the last mile.

Boy, I wish I'd been there for those last two. For all of these, really. If you've read what I've written, consider yourself a real die-hard connoisseur of good sports talk.

Take care and keep warm and safe, guys. ---Brian Powell

Hey Phil, honest mistake. Its easy to get those mixed up.

...and speaking of the '04 ALCS, it reminds me of Fever Pitch with Jimmy Fallon.
What a great baseball movie!

Regards,
Brent

That Boise State bowl game against Oklahoma a few years back was pretty entertaining. Statue of Liberty play to a proposal to end the game. Good stuff!

The 2006 Rose Bowl was one of, if not the best college football game ever.
Vince Young's performance was one of the best in college football history.

If you're not American, you won't get it. That game was a combination of so many things for the US - a bad economy putting the whole country into a funk, the Iranian Hostage situation, the general feeling the US was losing its place as a superpower, anger at the Soviets over the invasion of Afghanistan, a lot of myth-making that the Soviet hockey team was (not necessarily wrongly) considered unbeatable, and so on. And most of that stuff simply isn't going to resonate with a Canadian. For Americans, though, that game was something incredibly special. Of course, most Americans still think it was for the gold medal...

1980 Miracle on Ice
2011 Game six World Series
1969 Arkansas-Texas Big Shootout but I always turn the tape off with four minutes to go!

Chris, its just that in the grand scheme of hockey importance, its not up there for me, political ramifications aside.
And to be fair, for a lot of Americans, that's the ONLY hockey game they've ever seen.
You make a good point though, I'm sure the Summit Series and Paul Henderson's winning goal means nothing to you.

Lots of amazing games mentioned, and glad the '96 College WS final got some love. Warren Morris's HR is one of the most climactic ever... 2 outs, bottom of the 9th inning in a winner take all championship game, and LSU was trailing at the time of the HR. Very few, if any game ending HRs meet all those criteria.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXtP385K9dE

I won't argue with any of the others listed- Game 6 '86 WS, Game 1 '88 WS, 1992 Duke v Kentucky, etc, but below are a couple amazing finishes that got a bit less exposure.

1994 Plano East v John Tyler for the Texas state title is still maybe the most ridiculous finish I've ever seen in any sport, on any level. I remember seeing highlights on Sportcenter when it happened.. I was a senior in high school, maybe a week or two after having played my final football game, and it left quite an impression on me at the time. I remember trying to explain what I'd seen to people, in the days before YouTube, and would guess 9 out of 10 thought I was exaggerating or just completely full of it. Was happy to see it get a little play on ESPN this past year due to it being its 20th anniversary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHkABO0VwCg

The other is just an awesome college hoops finish, Adam Spanich USC, 6 pts in 2.8 seconds vs Oregon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkWOxWX4GP0

Oh man, great pick on the Plano East vs John Tyler game. Greatest finish ever.

Not quite nothing but, yeah, definitely not in the same realm for me. I might feel a bit different without Bobby Clarke's dirty play.

Kudos! I'm surprised you're aware of the incident and that you know who Bobby Clarke was.... nice! I'm used to most Americans I meet not knowing too much about hockey history.
And the incident was a shameful display, especially for a country like Canada. By your own admission though you wouldn't "get it", or understand how important that series was to Canadians and hockey either way.
So let's just say we both have our favorites.

There is more to the usa-ussr game. It was a true amateur team vs. a great pro team. The series you posted were NHL players vs. Soviet pros. It is the greatest upset in sports history.

That got me thinking and looking up some things. As far as I can tell, the biggest upset in sports history, or at least since Vegas started taking action, was this one:

10/6/2007 373 STANFORD +41 -110 o57 - 110 +7500
374 USC -41 -110 u57 - 110 -14900

All of which means that Stanford was given less than a 1% chance of winning that game. It was a less important game I guess, to the extent that the outcomes of sporting events can ever be truly important, but Stanford was on the order of ten times as big an underdog against USC as the USA was against the Soviets.

If Angola had beaten the Jordan/Magic/Bird Dream Team I guess that would have been a bigger upset, but there aren't many sporting events I can recall that included a favorite with >99% chance of winning.

I can't think of any in soccer or hockey.

Good pick, although to me the final moments of Manchester City's 2012 Premier League clincher were second for second the most amazingly tense moments I've seen in the sport.

I'm from Detroit - hockey is in my heritage ;)

For me, it also helps that I'm old enough to remember 1980 but not for the Summit. I get why it's so important to Canadians - it just doesn't resonate for me. Like I said, for Americans, the Miracle game is about waaaaaaay more than just the game itself.

1994 Canada Sweden Olympic Hockey gold medal game, ending in a shootout won by Sweden, was incredibly intense and physical.

That's exactly my point. It was amateurs.
Was it an amazing display and exhibition of the best hockey skills in the world? Hardly.
The summit series on the other hand was the first major meeting between Canada and Russia, the two world hockey powers....
So its almost impossible to quantify its importance.
Can we call the '80 victory important to the US, especially at the time? Definitely.
If you started a thread asking for the biggest game with socio-political implications....you might have something. Or a thread asking for the biggest upset in sports...then we're in agreement. But to call it one of the GREATEST games period.... it doesn't register on my list.

A Motown boy! So are we a big Red Wings fan? 😃

OT - All-Time Best Games in Sports
 

2007 Fiesta Bowl. I am a native Boisean, and have never enjoyed a televised sporting event more than that one... I can still vividly remember putting my raised fist through my buddy's ceiling fan in victory!


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OF COURSE.

I finally made the plunge and subscribed to Gamecenter Live this year so I can get every Wings game. I live in Spokane, WA now and got rid of cable. Was going to suffer some serious hockey withdrawal without the subscription. Have been a fan since the late 70s but got more into it when Yzerman - my all-time favorite athlete in any sport - got drafted.

Sure, you're not an American, why would it mean anything to you? The game you mention between Canada and the Soviets means exactly nothing to me...neither does any of the soccer matches listed above. Everything is relative. IMO though a game doesn't have to showcase the best skills in the world to be among the greatest games of all time. I'll take a rag tag group of amateurs shutting down some of the most skilled players in the world if only for one game. It was probably a one in a million happening (hyperbole? eh, whatever), that's why it was great, no one gave the US a chance. No one.

If you took a poll of Americans today I think the Miracle on Ice game in 1980 would win in a landslide as the greatest game ever. It was not the Gold Medal game but based on all the factors involved especially the Cold War this game was the greatest game ever.

This is a forum for collecting cards of America's pastime. You should not be surprised America centric answers. Upsets are a part of American culture going back to defeating the English at Yorktown.

At least the usa-user hockey game had meaning, both teams were trying to win an Olympic gold medal. The summit series was just an exhibition. It doesn't even register on our radar. I don't recall the game even being on TV. The only reason I've even heard of it was an article in SI after the fact.

Preseason, regular season or exhibition games aren't even on my radar. Championships are what matter. Olympics, World Series, Super Bowl, NBA Finals, Stanley Cup Finals, NCAA Championships, ect. Great upsets make for great games. Underdogs raising their level of play makes great games. We're just going to have to agree to disagree.

1996 Indiana High School Basketball Regional- New Castle vs Batesville

Nearly 10,000 people packed the worlds largest high school gymnasium to see David and Goliath. Batesville was the last hope of Hoosier diehards. The last chance that a small rural school could win the fabled Indiana High School Tournament. No team had done it since Milan in 1954.

I've been to World Series Games, NCAA Finals for basketball, and played football games at Clemson, The Swamp and Auburn. Nothing has compared to the electricity that was in that massive high school gym that day. The home team was outnumbered. Every non-New Castle resident was cheering hard for the 5'10" Michael Menser led Bulldogs of Batesville. He was absolutely magic that day but in the end, New Castle flung a half court shot at the buzzer and ended Cinderella's run.

I had goosebumps just writing that.

Picture of this "cathedral".
http://meriweather.com/wp-content/up...p-CAM-View.jpg