Post by MikeGrim on Oct 25, 2008 12:15:15 GMT -5
SI Cover Jinx? Madden Cover Curse? How About The Palin Puck Drop Plummet?
by: Michael C. Grimaldi
Okay, so I gather you have all heard of the Sports Illustrated cover jinx and the "Madden Curse", right? Well today I want to introduce a new "sports curse" to the lexicon of the word, "The Sarah Palin Puck Drop Plummet."
If you haven't heard of these jinx or curses, you're a moron; but then again, if you read this page, you're probably a moron because, well, this site is run by and it's writers are morons...I said morons, not Mormons. We're not that crazy!
Anyways, the "SI Cover Jinx," is basically based on the idea that a player and/or team who appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated will experience bad luck in the not so distant future. I pulled up a column written at Magazines.Things-and-other-stuff.com that details the "jinx" perhaps dating back to Time Magazine, but we'll stay sports related here. The column quotes an article written in a 2002 piece in SI about the jinx by Alexander Wolff. The issue was called, The Cover No One Would Pose For: Is The SI Jinx Real?" In the column, Wolff wrote:
When Eddie Mathews appeared on the cover of the first issue of SI, dated Aug. 16, 1954, he and the Milwaukee Braves were on a nine-game winning streak. They lost their next game, on Aug. 17, and a week later a pitch struck Mathews on the hand, causing an injury that forced him to miss seven games. Thus began the legend of the SI Jinx...
...In the end we came up with six categories of misfortune -- an individual slump; a team slump; an individual blunder or bad play; an individual injury or death; a bad loss or lousy performance by a team or individual; and a failure to win a title after having been featured during the post season. We added a seventh category to accommodate miscellaneous calamities, like Nike's stock plunge shortly after CEO Phil Knight appeared on the cover in 1993. The clock begins ticking the day the magazine hits the newsstands, which is the Wednesday before the issue date.
We made the following broad findings: Of the 2,456 covers SI had run, 913 featured a person who, or team that, suffered some verifiable misfortune that conformed to our definition -- a Jinx rate of 37.2%. The majority of those instances (52.7%) were bad losses or lousy performances by a team, followed by declines in individual performance (44.6%), bad loss or lousy performance by an individual (25.2%), postseason failure (13.4%), injury or death (11.8%) and blunder or bad play (4.6%).
So that's just a bit of history on that "jinx." The other sports phenomenon is the "Madden Curse." The "Madden Curse" is named for the "Madden (insert year here)" video game, that each year features on it's cover, a player who either had immense success the previous year or is assumed to be a major star. Prior to "Madden '99" (which was released in Fall of 1998), every cover of the game featured on John Madden himself, who, unless you count what must be tons of clogged arteries, has actually made so many millions off of the recognition he receives from it, actually has fared extremely well. In the Madden '99 version of the game however, Electronic Arts, the publisher of the game, decided to put San Francisco 49ers running back Garrison Hearst on the cover...and Hearst had the best season of his career...but in the playoffs that year, Hearst suffered an ankle injury that would put him out of the league for 2 seasons and never fully recover. It's debatable wether or not he "counts" as part of the curse, if for no other reason than, he never really did appear on the cover. Most if not all of the copies of the game still only had Madden on the cover, yet there are some covers that Hearst appeared on in at least a promotional setting. Since then, 10 other players have been on the cover and most if not all have seen their careers change or have a down season.
Here's a couple of sites that try and document the curse and it's validity:
-The John Madden Football Curse
-Snopes.com: Madden Curse
-Feasting on the Bones of the Madden Curse
So now that you've be given some history, let me expound on the newest sports jinx or curse, which while I wasn't the first to realise, I want to be the first to name, and I call it, "The Sarah Palin Puck Drop Plummet." Long and wordy, but hopefully catchy. You all know Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, right? That good ol' folksy, small town "hockey mom?" Well, at least, you know that is who we are told she is...the facts to the contrary are another column for another day. So anyway, Palin became the "face" of "Hockey Moms" when she was selected as the Republican Vice Presidential nominee in this, the 2008 US Presidential campaign. Right off the draw she used the term, "hockey mom" to describe herself, which sort of made the members of a niche sport in this country like hockey is, stand up and take notice. Well, to make a long column short ("too late"), Gov. Palin, as the face of hockey moms, was invited to drop the puck at the Philadelphia Flyers' home opener on October 11, 2008. I'll ignore the reaction the "elitist South Philly fans" gave her and I'll also ignore that the owner of the arena is a huge RNC contributor and that Pennsylvania happens to be the most focused upon battleground state in the election (see, by saying I'll ignore it, I can say it and pretend I didn't). What can't be ignored are the results. That night the Flyers, who last season made it to the Conference Finals, lost to the rival Rangers 4-3. "So what?" you ask. So it wasn't just that loss but the fact that the Flyers did not win ONE SINGLE GAME until just last night. "So what?" you ask again. Clearly going six games without a win isn't unheard of, even for a team that was good the previous year. And that is true. HOWEVER...enter...St. Louis.
Last night, the night the Flyers finally won a game, good ol' hockey mom Palin, after a day of campaigning and being deposed for alleged abuse of power allegations, was asked to drop the puck at the Savvis Center before a home game for the St. Louis Blues against the Los Angeles Kings. The Blues, who while they may have some good young players to build on for the future, have lost their best young player for the season and appeared to be going no where this season, yet they were off to a very fast start going 4-2-0 before last nights game. Well, enter Governor Jinxy McJinxerson, and not only did the Blues lose by getting shut out 4-0, but like I said, the Flyers won. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!
"The Palin Plummet" was exercised from he Flyers by another team taking her on, and unlike herpes, once you give it to someone else, you don't get to keep it. Now, maybe the Blues will win tonight against Florida and you'll say, "see, there is no 'Palin Puck Drop Plummet'." And maybe you'll have a point...or MAYBE the Blues are smart enough that they hired that Witch Doctor Pastor who preached at Palin's Church in Wasilla, AK and he'll scare off the curse before it becomes too devastating to the Blues Organization. I don't know what the future holds, but I say there is a new curse in the sports world and, as a Chicago Blackhawks fan I encourage the owners of Detroit Red Wings to get Governor Palin to the Joe Louis Arena STAT!
Oh, and if you still don't believe me, just look at the polls on Palin's effect on John McCain's campaign.
by: Michael C. Grimaldi
Okay, so I gather you have all heard of the Sports Illustrated cover jinx and the "Madden Curse", right? Well today I want to introduce a new "sports curse" to the lexicon of the word, "The Sarah Palin Puck Drop Plummet."
If you haven't heard of these jinx or curses, you're a moron; but then again, if you read this page, you're probably a moron because, well, this site is run by and it's writers are morons...I said morons, not Mormons. We're not that crazy!
Anyways, the "SI Cover Jinx," is basically based on the idea that a player and/or team who appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated will experience bad luck in the not so distant future. I pulled up a column written at Magazines.Things-and-other-stuff.com that details the "jinx" perhaps dating back to Time Magazine, but we'll stay sports related here. The column quotes an article written in a 2002 piece in SI about the jinx by Alexander Wolff. The issue was called, The Cover No One Would Pose For: Is The SI Jinx Real?" In the column, Wolff wrote:
When Eddie Mathews appeared on the cover of the first issue of SI, dated Aug. 16, 1954, he and the Milwaukee Braves were on a nine-game winning streak. They lost their next game, on Aug. 17, and a week later a pitch struck Mathews on the hand, causing an injury that forced him to miss seven games. Thus began the legend of the SI Jinx...
...In the end we came up with six categories of misfortune -- an individual slump; a team slump; an individual blunder or bad play; an individual injury or death; a bad loss or lousy performance by a team or individual; and a failure to win a title after having been featured during the post season. We added a seventh category to accommodate miscellaneous calamities, like Nike's stock plunge shortly after CEO Phil Knight appeared on the cover in 1993. The clock begins ticking the day the magazine hits the newsstands, which is the Wednesday before the issue date.
We made the following broad findings: Of the 2,456 covers SI had run, 913 featured a person who, or team that, suffered some verifiable misfortune that conformed to our definition -- a Jinx rate of 37.2%. The majority of those instances (52.7%) were bad losses or lousy performances by a team, followed by declines in individual performance (44.6%), bad loss or lousy performance by an individual (25.2%), postseason failure (13.4%), injury or death (11.8%) and blunder or bad play (4.6%).
So that's just a bit of history on that "jinx." The other sports phenomenon is the "Madden Curse." The "Madden Curse" is named for the "Madden (insert year here)" video game, that each year features on it's cover, a player who either had immense success the previous year or is assumed to be a major star. Prior to "Madden '99" (which was released in Fall of 1998), every cover of the game featured on John Madden himself, who, unless you count what must be tons of clogged arteries, has actually made so many millions off of the recognition he receives from it, actually has fared extremely well. In the Madden '99 version of the game however, Electronic Arts, the publisher of the game, decided to put San Francisco 49ers running back Garrison Hearst on the cover...and Hearst had the best season of his career...but in the playoffs that year, Hearst suffered an ankle injury that would put him out of the league for 2 seasons and never fully recover. It's debatable wether or not he "counts" as part of the curse, if for no other reason than, he never really did appear on the cover. Most if not all of the copies of the game still only had Madden on the cover, yet there are some covers that Hearst appeared on in at least a promotional setting. Since then, 10 other players have been on the cover and most if not all have seen their careers change or have a down season.
Here's a couple of sites that try and document the curse and it's validity:
-The John Madden Football Curse
-Snopes.com: Madden Curse
-Feasting on the Bones of the Madden Curse
So now that you've be given some history, let me expound on the newest sports jinx or curse, which while I wasn't the first to realise, I want to be the first to name, and I call it, "The Sarah Palin Puck Drop Plummet." Long and wordy, but hopefully catchy. You all know Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, right? That good ol' folksy, small town "hockey mom?" Well, at least, you know that is who we are told she is...the facts to the contrary are another column for another day. So anyway, Palin became the "face" of "Hockey Moms" when she was selected as the Republican Vice Presidential nominee in this, the 2008 US Presidential campaign. Right off the draw she used the term, "hockey mom" to describe herself, which sort of made the members of a niche sport in this country like hockey is, stand up and take notice. Well, to make a long column short ("too late"), Gov. Palin, as the face of hockey moms, was invited to drop the puck at the Philadelphia Flyers' home opener on October 11, 2008. I'll ignore the reaction the "elitist South Philly fans" gave her and I'll also ignore that the owner of the arena is a huge RNC contributor and that Pennsylvania happens to be the most focused upon battleground state in the election (see, by saying I'll ignore it, I can say it and pretend I didn't). What can't be ignored are the results. That night the Flyers, who last season made it to the Conference Finals, lost to the rival Rangers 4-3. "So what?" you ask. So it wasn't just that loss but the fact that the Flyers did not win ONE SINGLE GAME until just last night. "So what?" you ask again. Clearly going six games without a win isn't unheard of, even for a team that was good the previous year. And that is true. HOWEVER...enter...St. Louis.
Last night, the night the Flyers finally won a game, good ol' hockey mom Palin, after a day of campaigning and being deposed for alleged abuse of power allegations, was asked to drop the puck at the Savvis Center before a home game for the St. Louis Blues against the Los Angeles Kings. The Blues, who while they may have some good young players to build on for the future, have lost their best young player for the season and appeared to be going no where this season, yet they were off to a very fast start going 4-2-0 before last nights game. Well, enter Governor Jinxy McJinxerson, and not only did the Blues lose by getting shut out 4-0, but like I said, the Flyers won. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!
"The Palin Plummet" was exercised from he Flyers by another team taking her on, and unlike herpes, once you give it to someone else, you don't get to keep it. Now, maybe the Blues will win tonight against Florida and you'll say, "see, there is no 'Palin Puck Drop Plummet'." And maybe you'll have a point...or MAYBE the Blues are smart enough that they hired that Witch Doctor Pastor who preached at Palin's Church in Wasilla, AK and he'll scare off the curse before it becomes too devastating to the Blues Organization. I don't know what the future holds, but I say there is a new curse in the sports world and, as a Chicago Blackhawks fan I encourage the owners of Detroit Red Wings to get Governor Palin to the Joe Louis Arena STAT!
Oh, and if you still don't believe me, just look at the polls on Palin's effect on John McCain's campaign.