Sports·The Buzzer

Now that Winnipeg won the Grey Cup, what are the worst sports droughts?

Today's edition of our newsletter is mostly about the longest-suffering fans in sports. Plus, Canada's run to the Davis Cup final, dangerous cross-checks and some possible big NBA changes.

Please keep Buffalo in your thoughts

".... And STILL champions of sports misery..." (Brett Carlsen/Getty Images)

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Here's what you need to know right now from the world of sports:

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are off the schneid — so who's left on it?

Winnipeg won the Grey Cup last night with a 33-12 upset of Hamilton. The Blue Bombers' defence was the key to victory: it forced an incredible seven turnovers and piled up six sacks. Winnipeg born-and-raised running back Andrew Harris was the star on offence: he gained 169 yards and scored two touchdowns on 23 touches to become the first Canadian since Russ Jackson in 1969 to win the Grey Cup game's Most Valuable Player Award. And that guy can finally wear pants now.

But the biggest story was the end of another drought: Winnipeg's 29-year stretch without a Grey Cup. The Bombers foisted the title of longest-suffering CFL franchise onto Hamilton, whose championship drought will now reach 21 years — and counting.

Bad as that is (especially in a league with only nine teams), it's far from the longest championship drought in sports. Here are the worst dry spells in the four major North American leagues:

NHL: Toronto Maple Leafs

If the Leafs don't win the Stanley Cup this season, they'll be guaranteed to at least match the longest titleless run in NHL history: the Rangers' 54-year slog from 1940-1994. To avoid that, Toronto is hoping to copy St. Louis' blueprint: like this year's Leafs, last year's Blues got off to a slow start and changed coaches. Then they went on to win the first Cup in the 51-year history of the team.

MLB: Cleveland Indians

They've now gone 71 years without winning the World Series. Adding insult to injury, the Indians inherited baseball's longest championship drought when the Cubs beat them in the 2016 Series to snap their own 108-year run.

NFL: Arizona Cardinals? No — Detroit Lions

This one's not as clear cut. The Cardinals haven't won a title since 1947 — 20 years before the first Super Bowl and 23 years before the NFL merged with the AFL to create the modern league. So that's a long time. But before settling in Arizona, the Cardinals were based in Chicago (their home for the last championship) and St. Louis. That's three different fan bases, so this drought doesn't feel as continuous — or as painful.

We should probably give the "honour" to Detroit then. Their last NFL title came in 1957. And it somehow gets worse: in the 62 years since, the Lions have won exactly one playoff game. That came way back in 1991, and the next week they got blown out 41-10.

NBA: Atlanta Hawks and Phoenix Suns

This is similar to the NFL situation. The Sacramento Kings franchise has gone 68 years without a title, but it didn't play in its current city until much later. Let's call it a tie between the Hawks, who moved to Atlanta for the 1968-69 season, and the Suns, who started as an expansion team that same year.

(Dis)honourable mention: Buffalo

Please spare a thought for probably the most tortured sports city on our continent. Buffalo hasn't won a championship of any kind since the Bills captured back-to-back AFL titles in 1964 and '65. As you may have heard, the team lost back-to-back-to-back-to-back Super Bowls in the early '90s. The Sabres, who are currently celebrating their 50th year, have never won a Stanley Cup. And did you know Buffalo once had a NBA team? No? There's a good reason for that. The Braves won only one playoff series in eight years before moving to San Diego and renaming themselves the Clippers.

Speaking of San Diego (which lost the Clippers to Los Angeles in 1984), that city has gone even longer than Buffalo without a ring. The Chargers won the AFL championship in 1963, then lost the title game to the Bills the next two years and never won another AFL or NFL title before the Chargers moved to L.A. in 2017. The Padres joined Major League Baseball in 1969 and are still trying to win their first World Series. But San Diego also has San Diego weather. Buffalo has this. So we're saying Buffalo has it worse.

Quickly...

Canada lost its first Davis Cup final, but still came out a winner. The men's tennis team's Cinderella run finally ended yesterday against a tough Spain team that featured world No. 1 Rafael Nadal and No. 8 Roberto Bautista Agut and was also hosting the tournament. But Canada was playing with house money. It wasn't even supposed to make it out of the group stage. Instead, it upset Italy and the U.S. to reach the knockout round, then took out Australia and Russia to reach the final for the first time in the 119-year history of the event. Call it a moral victory, and a great way to end the best year ever for Canadian tennis. Bianca Andreescu won the country's first-ever Grand Slam singles title (along with the highly regarded Indian Wells and Rogers Cup tournaments), and on the men's side Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime finish the year ranked 15th and 21st, respectively. All three of those players are 20 or younger. The future looks bright. Read more about the Davis Cup final here.

The NHL issued its second suspension for a dangerous cross-check in as many days. Toronto's Alex Kerfoot got two games today for sending Colorado's Erik Johnson into the boards from behind during Saturday's game. But the one everyone is talking about is the four-game suspension St. Louis' Robert Bortuzzo got for his brutal attack on Nashville's Viktor Arvidsson that same night. After cross-checking him into the net from behind, Bortuzzo seemed frustrated that a penalty was called, so he took it out by cross-checking Arvidsson (who was still on the ice) again in the lower back. Arvidsson was injured and will miss four to six weeks. Here's how it looked:

Blues' Bortuzzo suspended 4 games after cross-check puts Preds' Arvidsson on shelf

5 years ago
Duration 0:56
St. Louis Blues defenceman Robert Bortuzzo has been suspended four games for cross-checking Nashville Predators forward Victor Arvidsson, who is expected to miss 4-6 weeks with a lower-body injury.

Brooke Henderson came pretty close to the biggest paycheque in women's golf. The Canadian finished fifth at the season-ending LPGA Tour Championship. She was three shots behind South Korea's Sei Young Kim, who drained a 25-foot birdie putt on the final hole to win the $1.5-million first-place prize. Putt for dough, as they say. Henderson still pocketed about $176K — her third-biggest payday of year, behind the two tournaments she won. Read more about the final round here.

The NBA is considering some big changes. Talks are reportedly underway between the league, the players and TV networks to shorten the regular season from 82 games to 78, re-seed the final four teams in the playoffs so that teams from the same conference could meet in the Finals, and add two tournaments. The first of those would happen during the regular season and involve all 30 teams competing for an undetermined prize. The second would happen at the end of the regular season and involve the 7th- through 10th-seeded teams in each conference competing for the final two playoff spots. The idea with everything here is to restore some meaning to the regular season. The current trend of players and teams taking it less seriously has the NBA concerned about losing eyeballs in this era of more-cutthroat-than-ever competition for the entertainment dollar. As you've probably noticed, there's no load management on Netflix. Read more about the possible changes here.

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