There are records more shameful than others. The Detroit Pistons are the perfect example, having embarrassingly rewritten NBA history with a 27e consecutive defeat in the same season, Tuesday evening. On Thursday, they could do even worse by matching the mark of the Philadelphia 76ers, who lost 28 times in a row between the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 seasons. Since the holiday season is in full swing and it’s best to console them a little, it’s time to comfort them by showing them that they are far from alone. Here are five more shameful sequences in the wonderful world of sport.
• Read also: Very shameful record for the Pistons
1. The Sabers and the Penguins
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In the NHL, the uneasy record of 18 consecutive losses is proudly shared by the Buffalo Sabers and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
To all credit, the Penguins were the first to go down in infamy with their black series during the 2003-2004 season.
Between January 13 and February 22, Pittsburgh’s representatives went 0-17-1, allowing five or more goals on nine occasions.
The Sabers matched that mediocrity in 2021, going 0-15-3 between February 25 and March 29. In a shortened 56 game season, it was very classy!
2. Yes, my Colonels!
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You have to go back a long, long way to trace the record for futility in major league baseball. The great honor goes to the late Louisville Colonels, who made history for the wrong reasons in… 1889!
This team had suffered a 26-game losing streak in the middle of a campaign marked by a disastrous record of 27 wins and 111 losses.
Ten years later, the Colonels put the key in the door. A little more recently, in 1961, the Philadelphia Phillies flirted with the record by suffering 23 losses in a row.
3. The Cardinals were flying low
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The Arizona Cardinals are one of the teams filling the NFL’s basement in 2023, but they have been much worse in the past when the team played in Chicago. Between 1942 and 1945, this desolate team lost 29 games in a row.
You have to do it, knowing that at the time, seasons only had 10 games.
The sequence therefore stretched from October 25, 1942 to October 14, 1945, for almost three full years of great misery! The best part of this sad story?
Two years later, in 1947, the Cardinals won the league championship.
In the contemporary NFL, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers suffered 26 straight losses between 1976 and 1977.
4. The Jets crash
We are not talking about a pure losing streak here, but rather a winless streak.
All the same, it would be a shame not to celebrate the exploits of the Winnipeg Jets, who went 30 games in a row without winning during the 1980-1981 season, their second in the NHL.
From October 17 to December 23, they lost 23 matches and had seven draws, en route to an anemic 32 points.
5. Ladies suffer too
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The agony of perpetual defeat is not exclusive to men. In the WNBA, just like in the NHL, two teams share the sad record.
The Tulsa Shock ladies first paved the way in 2011 with a 20-game losing streak, which stretched from June 21 to August 25.
This season ended with an abominable 3-31 record, the worst in the history of the women’s basketball circuit.
The most sad thing is that at the end of this year of shame, the team did not even obtain the first pick in the draft in the lottery.
Fortunately for the Shock, the Indiana Fever recently made this streak forget by equaling the mark of 20 consecutive defeats.