The Greatest Moments in Sports....

....didn't happen in that sports' final championship game.  Think about the greatest moments in sports history and I bet the plays or games that pop into your head first are listed below, but none of those games were the ones play in the championship.  Sure, some of them were called championship games, but winning the NFC Championship is not the same as winning the Super Bowl.  Alright, now that that is out of the way, let's look at the greatest moments in sports and you will see what I'm talking about:

• The Christian Laettner Shot Against Kentucky - The Final Four.  You've all seen this shot, they replay it every March a hundred times, but the funny thing is that this last second game-winner happened in the game before the championship.
• The Catch - NFC Championship Game.  Joe Montana's touchdown pass to the fingertips of Dwight Clark helped the 49ers defeat the Cowboys, however, this catch only propelled San Francisco to the Super Bowl, not win it.
• Red Sox Comeback - AL Championship.  Down three games to the Yankees in the ALCS, the plucky Red Sox became the only team to in MLB history to win four straight to win a best-of-seven series, but that series was not the World Series.
• Cal/Stanford Game with the Band - Regular Season Game.  Another play that is replayed a hundred times each year was nothing but a regular season game and not even the last regular season game.  On top of that, California (the team that won this game) finished the season with a record of 7-4, so it wasn't like they went on to win anything of importance.
• Shot Heard 'Round the World - Last Regular Season Game (but technically a best of three playoff ).  In 1951, Bobby Thompson hit a walk-off home run that clinched the NL Pennant for the New York Giants.  Yup, just the pennant and not the World Series.
• Miracle on Ice - 2nd to Last Game of Round Robin Play.  That's right, quite possibly the most memorable moment in all of sports was in the Olympics when the US beat those pesky Russians in 1980 in hockey.  However, the aforementioned game was not the match that determined the gold medal winner, it wasn't until the US beat Finland later that week did America clinch first place in some weird round robin format that as since been scrapped.

As you can see, sports most memorable moments didn't actually matter when it mattered most.  Sure, most of these teams did go on to win their respective championships and sure, had they not won that particular game, they couldn't have won said championship, but the point is that these moments didn't happen when the result would have won the big one and that's all I'm really trying to say.

"Calm down there, fellas, you still haven't actually won gold yet."