Top 5 Dead Rivalries in Sports

On Monday night on the ice the New York Islanders and the New York Rangers squared off for another epic clash. The only problem is that no one seems to care anymore. The Rangers and the Islanders used to send at least minor shock waves through the sports world on the nights they would meet up back in the 80's and a little into the early 90's. Of course being a the rabid Rangers fan that I was in the 80's and 90's, I was especially in tune with when these games were coming up and what they meant. You see, I was one of a very few Rangers fans in my neighborhood on Long Island (which is Islander turf), and it was a torturous morning when I'd have to go into school after a Rangers loss at the hands of the hated Islanders. I saw that this game was on the schedule twice in the past week, and I barely cared. I still love my Rangers, and I get amped when they play the Flyers or the Devils, but the Rangers have owned the Islanders for so long now, and the Islanders have become so irrelevant that it could've been the Blue Jackets losing to the Rangers 3-0 Monday night and it would've been all the same. So with that being said, and with the power invested in me by the fans and myself, I now dub the Islanders and the Rangers a dead rivalry; along with the rest of these rivalries. Enjoy.

5- LA Lakers Vs. Sacramento Kings (NBA) - This one is simple, the Kings just suck now (even with the Kings stunning defeat of the Lakers two nights ago). It seems that this rivalry was red hot in the late '90's when the Kings were a championship contender. For a three year stretch from 2000 to 2003, the Kings hooked up with the Lakers in the playoffs each year. Being in-state rivals was one thing, but the 2003 Western Conference Finals series was the pinnacle of this rivalry. To this day, I still don't know what game the refs were calling in Game 6, but it wasn't the Kings and the Lakers that's for sure. The Lakers received questionable call after questionable call for the majority of that game resulting in a Game 7 in Sacramento. The Lakers went on to win Game 7 in a dramatic OT win in which they came back from a large deficit in 4th quarter. The Kings to this day have not recovered from this loss.

4- Kansas City Royals Vs. New York Yankees (MLB) - During the late 70's through the mid 80's, these two teams were among the best teams in baseball every season. With both squads littered with Hall of Famers (George Brett, Goose Gossage, Reggie Jackson, etc) the quality and intensity of baseball that was being played was at the highest level every game. Matching up several times in the ALCS (4 times from '76-'80) with the Yankees winning three of those four meetings, but the Yanks never dominated the Royals. These series looked more like fierce battles in an epic war. The Royals finally beat the Yanks in 1980 en-route to a World Series loss to the Phillies.
Side Note: the famous Pine Tar incident with George Brett took place in Yankee stadium also.

3- Cleveland Brown Vs. Cincinnati Bengals (NFL) - Two teams with the same founder have to hate each other on some level right? Paul Brown, perhaps one of the finest coaches ever and the founder of both franchises, was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns from 1945 to 1963 when he was ousted by owner Art Modell. The move obviously was not met with joyous uproar from the fan base (considering the team was named after coach Brown) and Brown's next move is probably what caused such a strong rivalry in the first place. In 1968, Paul Brown returned to football by purchasing and coaching the AFL's Cincinnati Bengals. He would coach them until 1976 and year after year the Browns and the Bengals would meet, and each game was as bitter as the last. These were personal, deep wounds that the players played out on the field. In 1976, Brown officially retired as coach, but stayed on as president. As president of the Bengals, they made it to two Super Bowls (losing both to the 49ers) something Modell's Brown never did.
That was long ago. This rivalry has been dead since at least the 80's since both teams have been mostly terrible since then. First off, the Modell owned Browns moved to Baltimore to become the Ravens in 1995, thus ending any real connection to the old rivalry, and the new Brown's haven't really made any noise as a franchise in the years since they've been back. As for the Bengals, with the exception of one or two seasons in the playoffs, they too have been largely irrelevant on the field. Their relevance seems to be more present in a court room rather than a football field.

2- New York Knicks Vs. Indiana Pacers (NBA) - During the 90's the Pacers and the Knicks would battle it out for the runner-up position in the Eastern Conference every season (their prize was a quick exit from the conference finals at the hands of the Jordan-led Bulls) except for the 93-94 season. The stars aligned and Michael Jordan decided he was too good to play in the NBA anymore, so he retired and tried baseball for a year or so. During that season, the Knicks and Pacers met in an epic 7-game series in the Eastern Conference Finals which saw the Knicks defeat Reggie Miller and the Pacers en-route to a Finals loss to the Rockets. The thing about this rivalry was not it's longevity, it was it's dramatics. The Reggie Miller heroics in Game 5 in '94 (24 pts in the 4th quarter) and his Game 1 "8-points in 8 seconds" magical ending at the Garden, the Patrick Ewing missed finger roll in Game 7 in '95 to lose that series and everything in between. For a few seasons whenever the Pacers and the Knicks got together you could expect a dramatic turn of events to unfold like Reggie's feud with courtside fans at the Garden, especially Spike Lee.They've met up a few times in the playoffs since then, but it just seems that since the characters have changed the hatred for each other has gone away. Miller and Ewing have retired and the personality of both franchises has changed, so the rivalry no longer exists.

1- New York Rangers Vs. New York Islanders (NHL) - As I had said at the top, perhaps I'm biased on this one because of what it meant to me throughout my childhood, but it is sad what has happened to possibly the best rivalry in the NHL for years. The Rangers and Islanders have met in the playoffs 8 times and nearly 300 times since the Isles came into the league in '72. Their records against each other are basically even (The Isles slightly lead the all time playoff record, the Rangers slightly lead in All Time wins) but that is not what made this rivalry great. If you truly want to know what made the Islanders-Rangers rivalry great, you have to go to all the fights that took place during those games. There have been more brawls between these two teams than there's been hockey played. I remember having arguments with Islanders fans in my neighborhood about who won the fights the night before, not the games.

The other aspect of this rivalry that was key to it's intensity was the fans. The Rangers and the Islanders had such ferocious fans at the time that when you went to a game you'd best be prepared to verbally defend yourself and your team if you entered the enemies building sporting your teams colors; especially Nassau Coliseum. Yes, it's a dump and it always has been, but back then there was a section of fans that would coordinate just for the Rangers-Islanders games, and shout down any Rangers fans in the building. It was truly an impressive spectacle and is sorely missed because Islanders fans have disappeared into the ether of the NHL universe. Rangers fans are still around because they have continued to be relevant despite a 5 or 6 year playoff drought (the Rangers are currently in 1st place in the Eastern Conference). The Islanders on the other hand still play in that dump on Long Island, and one terrible move after another has led them to the trash heap of history. The once great franchise that won 4 straight Stanley Cups in the early '80's is dead, and as a result so is this rivalry. A moment of silence please for those who have passed.........thanks.

Is their a rivalry that you remember being a great one that just doesn't live up to that hype anymore, or even worse doesn't have a hype anymore? Email me and tell me about them thesportsriot@yahoo.com or follow us on Twitter @TheSportsRiot.