Levels of Losing

Hammertime is not ashamed to profess his deep indebtedness to the Sports Guy, who writes some great columns for ESPN. Yes, I shamelessly rip him off from time to time. A while back he wrote a great column on levels of losing, something all sports fans can relate to. That’s right, a loss is not a loss is not a loss. Some are simply more painful than others.

SG defines 16 levels of losing, each more painful than the next, and he follows them with a personal memory or definitive example. I encourage you to read the whole article, even if you don’t get all the US sports references. If you can’t be arsed, what I’m gonna do is, y’see I’m gonna take some of those levels and include my own personal memory or example. In writing this I quickly realised that there’s a lot of games I’ve either forgotten or never saw that would fit these categories – I’d love to hear examples from readers.

Level XVI: The Princeton Principle
Sports Guy Definition: When a Cinderella team hangs tough against a heavy favorite, but the favorite somehow prevails in the end (like Princeton almost toppling Georgetown in the '89 NCAAs). ... This one stings because you had low expectations, but those gritty underdogs raised your hopes. ... Also works for boxing, especially in situations like Balboa-Creed I ("He doesn't know it's a damn show! He thinks it's a damn fight!"). ... The moment that always sucks you in: in college hoops, when they show shots of the bench scrubs leaping up and down and hugging each other during the "These guys won't go away!" portion of the game, before the collapse at the end.

Hammertime’s Personal Memory: 1998 grand final. The bulldogs came from NINTH position on the ladder – it was a 20 team comp that year – to make the grand final, including famous back to back, come from behind victories over the Knights and Eels to get there. They were massive underdogs heading into the grand final, but somehow they made it to half time with a 12-10 lead. Even Fatty was a believer, telling the audience that he thought the Dogs would have enough. As it turns out, they didn’t, leaking 28 points in the second half to go down 38-12. The next time the Dogs leaked that many points to the Broncos in the second half of a big game hurt a lot more actually…

Level XIV: The Alpha Dog
Sports Guy Definition: It might have been a devastating loss, but at least you could take solace that a superior player made the difference in the end. ... Unfortunately, he wasn't playing for your team. ... You feel more helpless here than anything. ... For further reference, see any of MJ's games in the NBA Finals against Utah ('97 and '98).

Hammertime’s Best Example: Joey Johns taking Newcastle to titles in 1997 and 2001. Man, they have to hurt Manly and the Eels bad, but just a smidgen of that pain is lessened by knowing an Immortal was on the other side.

Level IX: The Full-Fledged Butt-Kicking
Sports Guy Definition: Sometimes you can tell right away when it isn't your team's day. ... And that's the worst part, not just the epiphany but everything that follows -- every botched play; every turnover; every instance where someone on your team quits; every "deer in the headlights" look; every time an announcer says, "They can't get anything going"; every shot of the opponents celebrating; every time you look at the score and think to yourself, "Well, if we score here and force a turnover, maybe we'll get some momentum," but you know it's not going to happen, because you're already 30 points down. ... You just want it to end, and it won't end. ... But you can't look away. ... It's the sports fan's equivalent to a three-hour torture session.

Hammertime’s Personal Memory: 1994 grand final, Bulldogs versus Raiders. Starting with Marty Bella’s knock on from the kick off, this game got away from the Dogs very quickly. Icing on the cake was Mal Meninga taking an intercept, blowing past Jarrod McCracken and strolling over to seal the deal. Final score: 36-12.

Best Example: Two words: 40-nil. The FFBK has cropped up a few times in grand final qualifiers, which can be incredibly tense, sometimes more so than a grand final. Something about them brings out the best and worst in teams. 28-nil and 29-nil have special meaning to Sharks and Parramatta fans respectively.

Level VIII: The "This Can't Be Happening"
Sports Guy Definition: The sibling of the Full-Fledged Butt-Kicking. ... You're supposed to win, you expect to win, the game is a mere formality. ... Suddenly your team falls behind, your opponents are fired up, the clock is ticking and it dawns on you for the first time, "Oh, my God, this can't be happening."

Hammertime’s Best Example: Although it was part Alpha Dog, the Eels grand final loss to the Knights back in 2001 was mostly “This Can’t Be Happening”. I won’t say any more for fear of inducing a relapse into depression among Eels fans. Honourable mention to 2006 Storm grand final loss to the Broncos.

Level VI: The Broken Axle
Sports Guy Definition: When the wheels come flying off in a big game, leading to a complete collapse down the stretch. ... This one works best for basketball, like Game 3 of the Celtics-Nets series in 2002, or Game 7 of the Blazers-Lakers series in 2000. ... You know when it's happening because (A) the home crowd pushes their team to another level, and (B) the team that's collapsing becomes afflicted with Deer-In-The-Headlitis. ... It's always fascinating to see how teams bounce back from The Broken Axle Game. ... By the way, nobody has been involved in more Broken Axle Games than Rick Adelman.

Sports Guy’s Best Example: I hate bringing golf into this, because it isn't a team sport, but remember the Masters tournament when Greg Norman blew the six-stroke lead to Nick Faldo, then ended up losing by, like, five strokes? That was the all-time Broken Axle moment. Plus, writing a "Levels of Losing" column and not mentioning Greg Norman would have been almost sacrilege.

Hammertime’s Personal Memory: 2006 grand final qualifier, Dogs versus Broncos. The Bulldogs had only won the title two years earlier, and though they bombed in 2005 (it’s amazing how many champions suffer a hangover like that) they stormed back in ‘06. Brisbane meanwhile were in the middle of a terrible playoff losing streak – sure they’d made the semis the last five years, but they had something like a 2 and 10 record in that time. So the Dogs come out at their most pumped up, something Steve Folkes had a knack for once every 15 games or so, and completely smash the Broncos. They’re winning 20-6 and just before halftime, they spread the ball wide, Patten heads for the corner… but the play dies. That’s ok, us Bulldogs fans thought. 26-6 would have been nice, I’ll still take 20-6 in a grand final qualifier. About 2 minutes into the second half the Dogs finished a bad set with a weak kick downfield, taken by Justin Hodges. The kick chase line was nonexistent, Hodges tore through and either scored himself or passed it to someone else. From that moment on, this game had an inevitability about it. Incredible, we were still up by 8 with the GRAND FINAL waiting for us, and we knew we were gonna lose. Final score: 37-20. To make matters worse, the Broncos then won the grand final. I don’t care what people say about satisfaction in having the team that beat you becoming eventual champs – I want them to crash and burn.

Level III: The Stomach Punch
Sports Guy Definition: Now we've moved into rarefied territory, any roller-coaster game that ends with (A) an opponent making a pivotal (sometimes improbable) play or (B) one of your guys failing in the clutch. ... Usually ends with fans filing out after the game in stunned disbelief, if they can even move at all. ... Always haunting, sometimes scarring. ... There are degrees to The Stomach Punch Game, depending on the situation. ... For instance, it's hard to top Cleveland's Earnest Byner fumbling against Denver when he was about two yards and 0.2 seconds away from sending the Browns to the Super Bowl.

Hammertime’s Recent Example: Although I don’t care for either team, it’s hard not to feel sorry for the way the Broncos exited the semis last year. They were leading the Storm with about two minutes to go, and had the ball right on the Storm’s line. Don’t forget, the Storm had lost the week before to the Warriors, the very first time a top seed lost to an eight seed – and it was right at the death. They looked like being the first top seed to die in the arse, and it was going to be to the team that upset them in the grand final in 2006. Getting back to the game, Ashton Sims drops the ball, the Storm work it downfield and calm as you like Greg Inglis slides over in the corner, sealing the win. That’s gotta hurt.

Another example that comes to mind was the Kangaroos beating the British Lions over there a few years back. We’d looked bad all series, and were losing in the dying seconds. I think the hooter might have even blown, but the Aussies threw about a thousand passes, Lockyer was heavily involved, and they scored to win and claim the series. England knew then that fate was against them.

Hammertime’s Personal Memory: Bulldogs Eels grand final qualifier, 1998. The Dogs came back from 16 points down with 10 minutes remaining to win in extra time. This game had too many good moments. Dogs diving over in the corner in the dying stages to get within two points. Halligan converting a kick from the sideline under more pressure than any kick Hazem El Masri’s ever had. Paul Carige inexplicably kicking the ball as the siren sounded, leading to Craig Polla Mounter’s incredible almost-field goal from 50 metres out. Honestly, by that point both teams knew Canterbury was going to win, and they ended up scoring two tries in extra time to seal the deal.

Finally, I was tempted to throw in my own level of losing – The Revenge – but I realised that this is more a level of winning than losing. The Revenge is when you lose to someone in a crucial game but then turn the tables and return the favour on an equally grand stage. It’s accompanied by the horrible feeling that your team could be beaten in a big game two times in a row, something damn near impossible to recover from (see St George, 1992/93). The two biggest Revenge’s I can think of in recent times are Manly’s thrashing of Melbourne in last years grand final, juuuuust compensating for their loss in the previous year’s decider, and the Bulldogs’ victory over the Roosters in 2004, after losing the previous year’s grand final qualifier but equally importantly, the title they thought would be theirs in 2002. So very, very sweet.