Obscure sports trivia

Ernie Stautner?

 

Bird and the Pacers?

 

Pistol Pete and the Pelicans?

 

George Mikan and the Los Angeles Lakers

Oscar Robertson with the KC/Omaha/Sacramento Kings?

 

Ding ding.

That was the less obvious of the remaining answers. One left.

 

Phil Jackson with the Lakers?

 

Nope.

Upon further consideration, some might consider it a trick question, so I’ll just say it.

It’s Bill Russell, whose number was retired league-wide upon his death.

 

Saw this on a Facebook graphic and thought it was interesting. There are currently 50 cities with a franchise in the Big Four sports leagues. Which has gone the longest without one of its teams winning a championship?

*For the purposes of this question, we're starting with the very first year they got a team in one of the leagues. So the cities that have never won a championship would only date their droughts to the year their first team came into existence or relocated there — like 1995 for Jacksonville, or 2002 for Memphis.
**Also for the purposes of this question, we'll count titles from the major leagues that merged into the current Big Four and whose records are generally recognized as being part of the current leagues' histories. So AFL, ABA and WHA championships count. The USFL and old-timey baseball leagues like the Federal or Pacific Coast League do not.

 

My first guess would be Nashville, but I guess that doesn’t count the Houston Oilers’ years of ineptitude.

Maybe Vancouver? I don’t think the Canucks have won as a member of the NHL.

 

I’d guess Cincinnati or Buffalo.

 

Ottawa had the Senators in the early NHL, they went away due to the Depression and then they came back in the early 90s. I think their earlier version did win a Stanley Cup, so I’ll go with Ottawa.

Plus it seems like your “very first year they got a team in one of the leagues ” makes it seem like a bit of a trick question.

 

Ottawa is correct. The original Senators won the first Stanley Cup under the NHL banner in 1927, relocated a few years later, and haven't won it since returning as an expansion team in 1992.
The Vancouver Millionaires won the Cup in 1915, but obviously it was before the NHL had been formed. The Canucks didn't join the league and officially start the clock on a championship drought until 1970.

If you take Ottawa out of the equation, since they had a very brief NHL run followed by nearly 60 years without a major pro team, the next longest drought would be San Diego. The Chargers won the 1963 AFL title and the city hasn't had a champion since then. That narrowly edges out Buffalo, which had the Bills win the AFL championship in 1964 and '65.

Some of the other guesses and notations:
• Nashville has not won a championship, but its time in the Big Four only goes back to when the Oilers came to town in 1997. The two AFL championships they won in 1960 and 1961 get credited to Houston.
• Cincinnati's last championship came from the Reds in 1990. It's not even in the top five — which would be Ottawa (1927), San Diego (1963), Buffalo (1965), Utah (1971 ABA title), and Portland (1977).
• Interestingly, nearly two-thirds of the current pro cities — 29 of 50 — have won at least one championship since 2000 and 11 of the 21 who haven't won have made it to the finals in at least one sport.