The Victory Cup Curse is Real (Since S84)

[CowboyinAmerica 2,880]

 

Where Winners Aren't Winners

 

Seeing as it’s still rather early in the season, I was floundering a bit on something to write for this week. But then today’s game thread sparked an interesting thought:

 

Quote

“First round of playoffs you mean. If we get to the finals we're generally playing up and down in the regular season. I don't think I've ever gotten to the finals after winning the Victory Cup, but could be wrong.” - @Spartan

 

It’s called the Victory Cup curse in some circles, the idea that the league’s best team won’t actually win the championship in the playoffs. At a glance, it’s a bit absurd that the Victory Cup winner wouldn’t actually win the title - they’re the best team, and have an easier road to the finals due to seeding, right? On the other hand, the playoffs introduce an element of randomness that can be tough to overcome. If all 8 teams that make the quarterfinals were assumed to be equal (excluding the two Wild Card losers, since Victory Cup winners get a bye), then each team would win 1/8 or 12.5% of the team.

 

So I decided to look in recent history: Is there a Victory Cup curse? Here’s how Victory Cup winners have done in recent memory, dating back to S80 and the VHLE era.

 

S95 Moscow Menace (108 points): Quarterfinals loss to Davos 4-0

 

Was this entire article a conceit to bring up that Moscow got swept by a semi-still-rebuilding Davos last season? It’s not, but I’m certainly not going to argue the side effect. This will be Spartan’s number one data point for a while that good Moscow teams might actually be cursed.

 

S94 Toronto Legion (111 points): Finals loss to Moscow 4-2

 

I’m not sure I would necessarily call it a curse if the top team in the regular season makes it to the finals and takes that series to six games. Still, it stings a bit that this was comparatively a down Moscow team that finished fifth in the conference and had to go through the wild card game before their miracle run. Victory Cup curse? Prognosis: maybe.

 

S93 Malmo Nighthawks (106 points): Quarterfinals loss to Moscow 4-1

 

Or maybe it’s just a curse that Victory Cup teams will either lose to Moscow, or be Moscow and thus cursed themselves. This was admittedly a tough European Conference season where the top five teams finished between 106 and 91 points. So it’s not really a massive upset for Malmo here, more an unfortunate circumstance.

 

S92 Malmo Nighthawks (110 points): Quarterfinals loss to London 4-0

 

I will say though, this sweep stings a lot more for the Nighthawks. London isn’t a bad team for sure, finishing with 88 points and the four seed in the regular season. But for a Malmo team that finished 12 points clear of its closest competition in the regular season, they certainly would have wanted at least one playoff victory.

 

S91 HC Davos Dynamo (105 points): Quarterfinals loss to Helsinki 4-2

 

OK, so I went into this concept with the hypothesis that maybe Victory Cup winners didn’t do as poorly as the general perception thought. But nope, this is yet another team (from Europe, naturally) that fell to the wild card winner in the quarterfinals. Helsinki this season barely scraped into the playoffs by one point over Prague, but would go on to take the finals to six games.

 

S90 HC Davos Dynamo (106 points): Semifinals loss to Prague 4-1

 

Hooray, it’s a team that was able to win their first playoff series! And in semi-commanding fashion at that, taking down London in six games! But unfortunately for Davos, that was the end of the road. Prague was indeed a good team though, finishing with 100 points themselves and going on to take the title in a sweep over L.A.

 

S89 Moscow Menace (104 points): Quarterfinals loss to Prague 4-2

 

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A dominant regular season European Conference team goes into the playoffs and gets stomped by a wild card team that has around 80-ish points. This time, it was Moscow on the receiving end from Prague. OK, starting to understand why Spartan would believe there’s a curse here.

 

S88 Prague Phantoms (103 points): Quarterfinals loss to London 4-1

 

Maybe the entire point of this article is just me proving to myself that I didn’t pay enough attention to the Victory Cup curse. This also happened to be my final season with Xavier Booberry, and Seattle finished one point out of the Victory Cup. Considering that the Bears would go on to take London to Game 7 of the finals, maybe I should be thankful we didn’t get one more win.

 

S87 Vancouver Wolves (106 points): Quarterfinals loss to Seattle 4-1

 

You may be saying, “Oh my dear CIA, it’s clear this is a European problem! Just wait until we get back on the civilized North American shores.” Well, my hypothetical straw man friend, that doesn’t change things it seems. Vancouver finished 9 points up on every other team in S87, but it wasn’t enough to save them from a 74 point Seattle upsetting them in their first series.

 

S86 Calgary Wranglers (107 points): Quarterfinals loss to Vancouver 4-1

 

Of course, S87 couldn’t have hurt that bad for the Wolves, because they were on the other foot the previous season. The Wranglers beat out every other team by at least 7 points in the regular season, but the wild card Wolves dispatched them with ease in five games. I’m running out of things to say about these series that are all ending the same exact way.

 

S85 Warsaw Predators (108 points): Semifinals loss to Moscow 4-0

 

A dominant Warsaw team in a pretty even S85 regular season (only one other team finished over 90 points), and to be fair, Warsaw did at least reach the conference finals. The only problem is, they were swept once there by an 88 point Moscow team, who would go on to lose in the finals to a 84 point D.C. team. C'est la vie.

 

S84 Moscow Menace (114 points): Semifinals loss to Warsaw 4-3

 

Maybe the strongest team of the past dozen seasons, Moscow put up a dominant 114 points and cleared their next closest competitors in Europe by 18 points. So what happened? They lost in the conference finals of course! It was a close series to be fair, and Warsaw went on to win the title, but still another disappointment in a long line of them.

 

S83 Seattle Bears and Moscow Menace (113 points): Seattle beats Moscow in finals 4-3

 

So we finally have a Victory Cup team winning a title… kind of! Interestingly enough, it’s our first tie with Seattle and Moscow both ending the season with 113 points. Those two teams would also be the two to reach the finals, with the Bears winning the championship in seven games. So maybe it’s a half success for the Victory Cup champ? That’s how I’ll count it.

 

S82 Vancouver Wolves (110 points): Finals victory over Moscow 4-0

 

If S83 was a half victory for the Victory Cup champ, then we have a definitive date in S82 that the Victory Cup curse was no more. The Wolves were fairly dominant in the regular season thanks to their meta shenanigans (leading to hybrid attributes soon after), but even moreso in the playoffs by sweeping both the conference championships (over L.A.) and the finals en route to victory. Finally, we have a team that capitalized on the potential that it showed during the regular season.

 

S81 Vancouver Wolves (118 points): Finals victory over Moscow 4-2

 

Another dominant regular season resulted in another championship run for Vancouver. In this case, it wasn’t as easy of a road in the playoffs with Calgary taking Vancouver to seven games in the conference finals. But again, it shows that the Victory Cup curse wasn’t always a thing, just a recent phenomenon.

 

S80 Vancouver Wolves (118 points): Finals victory over Moscow 4-3

 

Just including this one for completeness sake that Vancouver also won the Victory Cup in each of their threepeat seasons. But it’s also funny to see that they beat Moscow each of those times.

 

So what have we learned today?

 

There’s a definitive date that the Victory Cup curse started: Season 84, ironically with one of the more dominant Moscow teams in a long-time. Since the Vancouver threepeat and the Seattle-Moscow tie in S83, Victory Cup teams have only been to the finals once (S94) and have never won it.

 

On the flip side, Victory Cup winners in the last 10 seasons have gone 2-8 in their opening series. That’s a bit insane actually - a statistically unexpected outcome even if the teams were assumed to be even, let alone that the team on the losing end is supposed to be the projected winner.

 

All in all, this tells me that the Victory Cup curse is absolutely real, and the Moscow Menace should start tanking games right now to try and avoid it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

[CowboyinAmerica 2,880]

1500+ words, claiming for the weeks ending:

 

11/3

11/10

11/17

Edited Thursday at 02:33 PM by CowboyinAmerica

[Spartan 4,375]

I'm always right! I'd say it's a cool write-up but I'm depressed now.

[Lemorse7 1,013]

Lol

[jacobcarson877 2,520]

Always been a big wildcard spot fan

[Beketov 8,996]

It would be interesting to compare this to pre-wildcard days. We have morale turned way down but anecdotally it feels like wildcard teams knock out the victory cup winning team far more often than bottom seeds were doing it before and I’ve long wondered if it’s because the extra 3-5 games of morale make a difference.

[CowboyinAmerica 2,880]

2 hours ago, Beketov said:

It would be interesting to compare this to pre-wildcard days. We have morale turned way down but anecdotally it feels like wildcard teams knock out the victory cup winning team far more often than bottom seeds were doing it before and I’ve long wondered if it’s because the extra 3-5 games of morale make a difference.

 

LEADERSHIP META GANG LET'S RIIIIIIIDE

[Victor 10,911]

2 hours ago, Beketov said:

It would be interesting to compare this to pre-wildcard days. We have morale turned way down but anecdotally it feels like wildcard teams knock out the victory cup winning team far more often than bottom seeds were doing it before and I’ve long wondered if it’s because the extra 3-5 games of morale make a difference.

I actually have an article idea on my list to look into this. Definitely feels suspicious. 

[LucyXpher 1,368]

2 hours ago, Beketov said:

It would be interesting to compare this to pre-wildcard days. We have morale turned way down but anecdotally it feels like wildcard teams knock out the victory cup winning team far more often than bottom seeds were doing it before and I’ve long wondered if it’s because the extra 3-5 games of morale make a difference.

I had this exact same thought, when did the wildcard round start?

[Beketov 8,996]

54 minutes ago, LucyXpher said:

I had this exact same thought, when did the wildcard round start?

Based off my quick search it appears S73 was the first. I think we might have had it before and then removed it and brought it back mind you; I feel like I remember wildcard games back in the 50’s or 60’s.

[LucyXpher 1,368]

37 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Based off my quick search it appears S73 was the first. I think we might have had it before and then removed it and brought it back mind you; I feel like I remember wildcard games back in the 50’s or 60’s.

Hmm I wonder also if there was any update to STHS around the S84 time when the curse appears to begin, maybe something behind the scenes— some evil Simon stuff.  lol pure speculation. 

[Spartan 4,375]

2 minutes ago, LucyXpher said:

Hmm I wonder also if there was any update to STHS around the S84 time when the curse appears to begin, maybe something behind the scenes— some evil Simon stuff.  lol pure speculation. 

Hybrid attributes

[LucyXpher 1,368]

6 minutes ago, Spartan said:

Hybrid attributes

There is that lol, starting in S84 that’s a pretty strong correlation.  But why should it be?  I mean, it makes sense that top teams wouldn’t have as much of an advantage as before, but a 2-8 record in the quarterfinals is a bit absurd

Edited Thursday at 04:55 PM by LucyXpher

[Grape 670]

1500 words just to say Spartan sucks