Minnesota is clearly Sports Hell

Not so long ago, 100% Injury Rate argued that the Bay Area was a sports hell. Sure, they’ve had a rough patch, but if you pit the Minnesota sports scene for the past few months, and really, over the course of the past 20 years or so, against the Bay Area or any other city or area with more than one sports team and you’ll see that Minnesota is in an awful string of luck.
First lets start more recently. It’s really been nothing but bad news for local teams, like the Twins who have lost Torii Hunter to free agency and discussions are rampant that ace Johan Santana will soon be traded to someone who can afford him. And oh yeah, it was the Twins worst season since 2000. Let’s also not forget that whole contraction debacle.
The Vikings have missed the playoffs the past couple of years and haven’t won more than 9 games since, that magic year 2000, when they lost by 41 in the NFC championship game. And if you don’t remember, there was that whole Love Boat thing and the Mike Tice era, the Red McCombs tenure and now Zygi Wilf and his whole looking down on the Minnesota area act. To make it better, they get
The Timberwolves made headlines this offseason by trading away the face of the franchise, and in many ways the face of sports in Minnesota, to the Celtics. So, Kevin Garnett is gone, and now the Wolves have the second worst record in the NBA.
The Wild are the best team in Minnesota right now, and will continue to be until Marian Gaborik inevitably injures his groin. They’re yet to win their conference, and unless they all stay healthy, it won’t happen this year.
Gophers football? 1-10. One and ten. And the one win was in overtime against Miami of Ohio. At home. And then there were ten losses.
The Gophers basketball team finished ahead of only Penn State and Northwestern, but to be fair, they each only had 2 conference wins. Each of them had one win against the Gophers, and both had more overall wins than Minnesota, but at least the Gophers added Tubby Smith as their coach, right?
So, thats the bleak state of the Minnesota sports scene now, but I think I should touch on one more thing. No Minnesota team has made it to the Championship game of their sport in 16 years. That’s longer than any city that I can think of other than maybe Cincinnati. Cleveland put the Indians in the World Series twice in ’95 and ’97 and Buffalo has been in the Super Bowl a couple years more recently, going in 1994. Those are the two cities most associated with sports misery, and Minnesota surpasses them, and Minnesota has more pro sports teams than either of those cities. For reference, by the way, Since the Twins went to and one the World Series in 1991, Bay area teams have competed in 3 championship games or series.
So, yeah, Minneapolis is sports hell.