{"id":72,"date":"2012-06-29T00:47:31","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T04:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nehsjc.org\/quarterly\/?p=72"},"modified":"2012-06-30T10:42:23","modified_gmt":"2012-06-30T14:42:23","slug":"sports-fans-see-share-of-losses-celebrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nehsjc.org\/quarterly\/sports-fans-see-share-of-losses-celebrations\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports Fans See Losses, Celebrations"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Fenway Park as viewed from Van Ness Street. (Photo by Shaniya Brown)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Jaime Gweshe<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any Bostonian would tell you Mark Twain may as well have been talking
\nabout sports.<\/p>\n

Boston sports fans have seen their fair share of historic collapses, heartbreaks, improbable wins and celebrations, particularly in the past 25 years.<\/p>\n

In the 80\u2019s the Celtics were dominant during the Larry Bird Era, cementing their place as one of the most storied franchises in the NBA, winning championships in 1981, 1984, and 1986. Elsewhere in Boston things looked promising, but teams were unsuccessful in reaching the pinnacle of sports glory. The Patriots made it to the Super Bowl in \u201986 but were defeated, and the Red Sox saw the same fate that year with the infamous between-the-legs Buckner blunder of the \u201886 World Series. The Big Bad Bruins followed suit when they lost in the Stanley Cup Final in \u201888.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, things were quiet in Boston.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got here we used to struggle with what we were going to write about,\u201d said Joe Sullivan, editor of the Boston Globe\u2019s sports section who arrived in 1994. \u201cThe Red Sox were sometimes a contender, sometimes not. The Patriots were building, the Celtics were just mediocre if not awful, and the Bruins were cheap and never went anywhere in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, with the new Millennium, a new era began in Boston. In the past decade confetti has rained down on the city as duck boats filled with champions rolled through the streets.<\/p>\n

The New England Patriots kicked off the trend of victories with a trio of citywide celebrations for their Super Bowl wins in \u201801, \u201803, and \u201804. The Red Sox followed suit winning the World Series in \u201804 to end the Curse of the Bambino and won again in \u201807. The Celtics won in \u201808 and the Bruins followed with a Stanley Cup Championship in \u201811.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s this incredible sequence of championship teams in Boston,\u201d said Sullivan. \u201cNow all the teams are not only expected to be contenders, but usually are. It went from sort of an afterthought to this incredible cauldron of competition between the big four sports. They\u2019re all good and all championship contenders. It\u2019s really kind of an amazing streak; if you look elsewhere in America it just doesn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a new decade of winning, Boston teams have been put under a microscope, and the City of Champions has become the City on the Hill.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest change is probably expectation,\u201d said Globe sports writer Kevin Paul Dupont. \u201cThe Red Sox had lost since 1918 \u2013 the Patriots were never much from the time they started in 1960 \u2013 they used to call them the Foxboro Follies, so I think the biggest change in culture and atmosphere is the fact that everyone expects more.\u201d<\/p>\n

What captivates the fans isn\u2019t just the expectation to win, but thriving on the drama of big losses just as much as they do with big wins. This makes recent failures of teams and changes not that big of a deal in terms of fan interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel there\u2019s almost more interest during the bad times,\u201d said CBS sports reporter Mike Hurley. \u201cAs much as people complain about the media blowing things out of proportion, the fact is that human beings love drama\u2026 It all probably stems from all the losing over the years; it\u2019s just what we\u2019re all used to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jaime Gweshe \u201cIf you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a few minutes.\u201d Any Bostonian would tell you Mark Twain may as well have been talking about sports. Boston sports fans have seen their fair share […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boston","category-full"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehsjc.org\/quarterly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehsjc.org\/quarterly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehsjc.org\/quarterly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehsjc.org\/quarterly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehsjc.org\/quarterly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/nehsjc.org\/quarterly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308,"href":"https:\/\/nehsjc.org\/quarterly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehsjc.org\/quarterly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehsjc.org\/quarterly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehsjc.org\/quarterly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}