Rivalries
 

Rivalries split cities, some are so big they have to be played in neutral cities,they glue fans to the t.v. sets, some teams base their whole season on beating a certain team and some even have a trophy.

What are your top 3 rivalries?

mine:

1. The border war: Kansas and Missouri, most rivalries are only for one sport but these universities duke it out in every single sport.

2. BoSox and the Yankees: what would be better to Sox fans: Winning the World Series, or going undefeated against the Yankees for five years?

3. Army-Navy: They have played over 100 games against each other. It's played in Philadelphia, about halfway between the two academies. This is the only game that matters in the season to these teams. I mean how can two such crappy teams get on to network tv. the game goes beyond the field.

Kansas and Missouri (espically basketball (obviously)).

Espically since I've been a KU fan since I can remember and I live in Missouri now.

Browns-Steelers
Cowboys-Redskins
Florida-Florida State

You guys forget the greatest of them all University of Michigan against Ohio State University. Was voted the #1 rivalry of all time.

Stanford vs Cal

Auburn vs Alabama.


Just to name a few.


Art

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Montreal Canadians

Calgary Flames vs Edmonton Oilers

Kansas vs Missouri

Red Sox and Yankees--Ask someone from Boston about Babe Ruth. Ask them about 1978. Ask them about Bucky (F*%$ing) Dent and see what their reaction is.

Redskins and Cowboys--It's taken a backseat lately with both teams struggling, but during a year when Dallas won just one game, the Cowboys fans took great pleasure in knowing that it was against Washington. With Daniel Snyder and Jerry Jones in charge, I expect this rivalry to heat up again.

Lakers and Kings--It's a new one, but just listen to the bitterness and name calling going back and forth. Ask Rick Fox what he thinks about Doug Christie and Christie's wife. It's a good one.



You could easily include any 2 college teams, but there are so many great college rivalries, that it was tough to choose one.

Red Sox, Yankees - Can't ask for more history.
Ohio State, Michigan - Ditto.
Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns - Just plan nasty.

How about North Carolina, Duke basketball - not lately, but Roy Williams is no slouch and I think the history of the game makes it one of the best in college basketball.

Mine are the:
Lakers-Kings and in college football, Tennessee & Florida. Those Tenn. games can get wicked really quick... I was there the last time the people tried to riot. Cops were everywhere after the game.

Oilers-Flames....its a pretty good one...its always intense

Oklahoma/Texas It just doesn't get any more hostile than when these two meet in any sport. And they are both good at all of them.


GO SOONERS!

Red Sox - Yankees Being a Sox fan, this has always been a burr on my ass. You're right JoeyB asking me about Babe Ruth Bucky F-ing Dent and the 1918 chant is like me if you can sleep with my sister. I'd probably have to ask you to step outside.

Red Wings - Avalanche : Kind of died down a bit, but in its day there were no two teams that hated each other more then them.

Islanders - Rangers : They still chant "Beat your wife Potvin" at the Garden, and he hasn't played in like 20 years!

Texas vs Texas a&m

all a&m ever cares about is beating UT at stuff.

i'm serious, they're school song is a rip off of the UT song (a parody).

you go to a&m site, all u see is broken longhorns.

aggie band's main mission is to be better than UT band.

i've been to college station (home of a&m) and all they care about is beat the longhorns. almost everything they do is anti-UT.

the biggest game of the yr is UT A&M game.

we've been winning for the past couple of yrs (including last yr's blowout)

How about:

Penguins-Flyers: Agreat rivalry in this state especially when both teams are doing well. Flyers have been kicking our ass lately though.

Kentucky-Louisville, basketball and football: Next to the Kentucky Derby the 2nd and 3rd (respectively) best annual sporting events in the state, especially in basketball.

Spurs-Mavs: two great teams with tons of talent in the same state? Not even Texas is big enough. I love rivalries.

Some great hockey rivals in the Playoffs;

Montreal Canadiens - Boston Bruins
Ottawa Senators - Toronto Maple Leafs
Edmonton Oilers - Dallas Stars
Detroit Red Wings - Colorado Avalanche

And of course, there's always the Oilers - Flames during the regular season.

My favorite SEC rivalry has to be Florida-Georgia i've even been to the gator bowl once. what a great rivalry.

MLB, no contest about the Yanks and the Red Sox. Contreras is a new chapter in that never ending feud.

In the NHL, Montreal-Boston, Montreal-Toronto, NY-NY and the battle of Alberta is what keeps the game alive.

fun spelling time

xiaver i know that is the worng spelling bearcats

Avalanche - Red Wings
Colorado - Nebraska
Broncos - Raiders

You guys need to cut the Dude a little slack - Texas plays a lot of teams that they can't beat - it's not really his fault!

Kentucky/Louisville

Kentucky/Florida

Duke/North Carolina (Especially now that both schools have great coaches once again)

Oilers - Stars
Leafs - Sen's
Oilers - Flames
I think that Edmonton has a hate on for two teams and thats it, everytime that you see them play Calgary, or Dallas its a war.

although easily not the biggest, one of the oldest ever, is the LAfayette college, Lehigh University rivalry, its been arouns 138 years, oldest collegic rivalry... yes older than the ivys... and just for the record Lafayette rules.

How about Harvard-Yale?

are you talking academics or sports?


j/k

Red river Shoot-out. OU v. Texas is a hell of a rivalry. got my tickets to the game already :)

Cubs - Cardinals

I think this one gets overlooked a lot by the media because they are both midwest teams but let me tell you this is a good one. And right now with the Cubs actually playing like a baseball team its going to be a good year in the NL central.

Bears Vs. Packers


Purdue Vs. Iu (Which isnt really a good one, since IU sucks!)

FSU Vs. Miami.

and theres always the old standbys...
Notre Dame Vs. Everyone
Army Vs. Navy
Osu Vs. Michigan

how about:

Cincinnati-Louisville
Dayton-Xavier
Tenn-Bama
Bama-Auburn
Sampras-Agassi

USC v. UCLA

c'mon, two of the greatest in their sports (UCLA - basketball - Wooden), (USC - football - Tailback U.). And there's nothing better than watching UCLA kick USC's ass at football and USC returning the favor in basketball. Strange few years.

Auburn-Alabama.

It's impossible to understand the tension unless you've had to live through it. This is something I found on a message board last year that comes close to explaining it, and the dates fit my age about right.

----------------------------------
Let me tell you something about hating Alabama. It has nothing to do with envying them. It has to do, for so many of us, with being treated like we're somehow lesser citizens of the state of Alabama or, worse, lesser human beings because of the accomplishments of their football team.

I grew up in the 1970s in an area of Alabama -- the upper half of Sand Mountain -- where very few people went to college. A lot of people there are farmers. If not themselves, then they have a farmer in their families. But my parents went to college. They went to Auburn. And they took my brother and me there for football games and basketball games. It was a special place to us, where we forged memories with our parents, their friends and our friends. My brother and I later went to school there, and my brother even played basketball there.

But my family was treated -- particularly by those who didn't even know UA was in Tuscaloosa, let alone have intentions of ever going there -- as if we were of a lower social status because we were connected to Auburn, "the farm school."

I could tell story after story after story, but I'll give you only a few. Like every year from about third grade to sixth grade, on the Monday after the Iron Bowl, when kids waited on me at the front door of our school with red-and-white shakers and then led me to our classroom, where everyone else stood and gave me a big "Roll Tide." Or when, after one of those years we lost yet again, and my brother "dared" to wear his Auburn coat to school, some of his classmates wrestled it off him and stomped it in a garbage can. And then there are the high-school idiots who weren't going to let me off a school bus when I was 8 or 9 years old unless I agreed to lead the bus in a "Roll Tide." I could go on for days.

So, as you can imagine, when I was younger, winning the Iron Bowl left me with a sense of relief more than it did a feeling of joy. It was knowing that, at least for a year, you didn't have to hear every redneck under the sun make a comment every time you dared to wear an Auburn shirt or an Auburn cap or watch an Auburn game.

That's why I can remember the '82 game (Bo Jackson) as if it were yesterday. Such a sense of relief followed that I had yet to experience. I had prepared myself for that day for years. Finally, I was going to get to go to church the next day and to school the following Monday and not hear a single word about the Iron Bowl. I never said one word to anyone about the game that year. I never said anything the next year, either. But, of course, after the '84 game, things were back to the usual -- phone call after phone call of "Roll Tide," people driving by the house and honking their horns and the usual onslaught at school.

It was precisely that '82 game, I believe, that took the rivalry to a new level, though. What did Auburn have the gall to do? We had the gall to take away from the one thing the masses of the state of Alabama could use to try to shake off the poor image the state had since the early 1960s, thanks to poverty and civil rights issues, and shake a collective fist at the rest of the country: Bear Bryant's football teams. We started winning, including wins over Alabama, and they couldn't stand it. It was as if we were betraying the state by daring to field a competitive football team again of our own. (How many times has my family heard "But it's your state!" when someone learned we are not Alabama fans but Auburn fans?)

I don't envy Alabama. Never have; never will. That's because Auburn is more to me than a football program. Our athletic teams' goal is to win national championships, but Auburn is ultimately about so many more things -- about shared experience with a group of people, of which athletic events are only a part. Is Alabama more than that to them?

And I think that's what frustrates Alabama so badly. No matter how many times they parade the seven, eight, nine or 12 national championships in front of us, it doesn't make us love Auburn less and secretly wish we were connected to Alabama. If anything, it makes us scratch our heads and wonder who it really is that has the insecurity problem. Is it Auburn -- or is the group that seems so desperately to want to have their alleged superiority, resulting from a game on a football field, validated?

If anyone should be called arrogant, it's Auburn people. That's because we know that the adversity we've faced and the experience and pride we share makes us better people. To quote the creed, I believe in Auburn and love it. And they'll never come close to having what I have, no matter how many football championships they collect.

Texas A&M v. t.u.

Man we hate those guys. You people just have no idea how appalling it is that they are better than us at everything right now.

The whole university was just a more fun place to be when we were kicking thier ass in football and baseball every year in the late 80's and early 90's. Now it just sucks because those punk asses can get their high and mighty tone that the A&M rivalry never really meant that much to them anyway it was always about Oklahoma. Jeez we hate those guys.

The Dude may now mock me all he wants. I'll shut my mouth and take what I've got coming. :)

I second that! As a die-hard Cardinal fan living midway between Chicago and St Louis there is nothing I love more than seeing the Cards whup some Cubbie ass! Especially since I have ALOT of Cubs fans as friends. Love to just rub it in their face. This year should be fun.

Michigan -- Ohio State,

Bears -- Packers
Kings -- Lakers
Bulls -- Pistons

Bulls-Pistons?

how about: Mets-Yankees, Cubs-White Sox and Dodgers-Angels?

Army-Navy has to be number one. No question on that. With people going on and on about bad role models and such in sports, you'd be hard pressed to find someone bad in this rivalry.

One of my favorites though has been the Packers and Bears. Not only is there the history, but also playing up here in the midwest there are some games in absolutely nasty weather. My favorite was the Monday Night game Halloween night. The wind was blowing so hard, when the Bears punter lined up and kicked a perfect punt that would have gone 50 yards on a normal day, it went up, floated for a little while, and came back, ending in about a 7 yard punt.

OU / Texas all the way. That is one ugly rivarly. Its a huge rivalry even when the teams suck, but for the past few years, both teams have returned to being powerhouses.

You know its bad when the local hospital in Dallas takes bets on which team will have the most fans sent to the hospital!

Funny side story: I was at College Station for the OU/A&M game in 2000 when Sooners won the national title. A&M / UT is another rivalry on about the same scale as OU / UT, so the two teams that UT hates the most were playing. There was one lone guy admidst 80,000 Aggie and Sooner fans that was decked out from head to toe in UT burnt orange.

Now, I'm no genius, but wow....that guy probably died before the day was over. Fans from both sides were screaming at him. It was pretty entertaining. I have a lot of respect for UT's program, they are good in a lot of sports, but they sure have some stupid fans. Then again, who doesn't? OU has plenty of em too, but I love it here anyway!

Any people here from Pitt or Morgantown to back me up on how big the "Backyard Brawl" Between WVU and Pitt is?

I know it's are biggest football weekend.

Yankees/Red Sox... The curse
Rangers/Islanders... POTVIN SUCKS
Army/Navy... Go NAVY Beat Army
Bills/Dolphins... Squish the fish

-Mikey