A friend on FB asked me a question that I can’t answer, but I figure you folks here can.
He and I are both pretty huge baseball fans (though he’s one of the grumpiest “fans” I know), and he was commenting on the fact that MLB teams do the traditional locker room champagne celebration after advancing to the playoffs, and after advancing beyond any round thereafter. His question was whether or not this is common in other sports. I’d never thought about it before, and I have no idea what the answer is. I follow a little bit of hockey and a little bit of football. I know that you see hockey players celebrate on the ice for a bit and then do the handshake with the other team after a round. But I don’t know what goes on in the locker room afterward. No idea for football either, and obviously not a clue for any of the other sports.
So for those of you who closely follow anything other than baseball, is there a similar tradition or level of celebration that playoff teams engage in when they’ve advanced to the next round (but short of winning the championship itself)?
Not in hockey. You need to win 4 playoff rounds to win the Stanley Cup. After winning the first round, a team doesn’t do anything other than get in the mind set of getting ready for the next team.
The the teams that win conference finals (semi-finals) are awarded a trophy. It has been about 20-25 years since those trophies have been touched regularly by the winning captain. The idea is that you don’t want to settle for the conference championship, and the focus is only on the Cup.
I have to correct you on one minor point. The Penguins HAVE touched the Prince of Wales Trophy all five times they won the Stanley Cup. The one time they didn’t (2008), they lost the Cup to the Red Wings. They touched it the next year and then won.
Other than that, the big champagne in the locker room celebration doesn’t come until after you win the Cup. Then you drink it from the Cup itself.
In college basketball advancing to the next weekend of the NCAA tournament is a big deal with celebration. Advancing to the Sweet Sixteen or Final Four is treated like a bigger deal than the first game of the tournament weekends. An on court celebration that involves cutting down the nets is more public than a locker room champagne celebration.
In college football, bowl games that aren’t even tied to the championship generally have on field formal celebrations, frequently televised, with award of a trophy.
Maybe it’s because I most closely follow the Big Ten where we have a LOT of trophies, but regular season rivalry games have a tendency to see pretty big, on field, post game celebrations. The trophy isn’t usually presented but seeing it on the field in the celebration can and does happen for some of them. I’m a Michigan State fan and some of my favorite scenes from the win over Michigan last weekend weren’t even from the game. It was hoisting the Paul Bunyan trophy after the win. It’s extra sweet when it happens in Ann Arbor.
Interesting point. The only other place where non-championship events are celebrated that I can think of is advancing to college basketball’s Final Four- the winners of each regional cut down the nets and get hats passed to them.
I think it’s just a matter of tradition. Baseball has always done this and other sports have not. Maybe it’s that baseball’s season is twice as long as hockey and basketball’s and ten times as long as football’s. Those advancements to the next round are a longer time in coming compared to other sports.
With baseball, I think it’s just the way things evolved.
Up through 1968, celebrations for winning the AL or NL pennant, and winning the WS.
Then from 1969-1993, there was the split into divisions. Winning the division was still a big deal, since the winner went on, and second place (even with 103 wins like the 1993 SF Giants had) went home for the winter. So champagne for winning the division, and then more champagne for winning the AL or NL pennant, and of course the WS.
So now you’ve got 3 rounds of champagne. So when the playoffs went to 8 teams (and more recently to 10), there was no reason not to have 4 rounds of champagne.
Since I don’t pay as much attention as I used to, do the wild-card teams celebrate with champagne when they either (a) clinch a WC spot, or (b) win their WC game?
The ratio of teams to playoff teams is smaller in baseball than it is in any other major North American sport, too. So in some ways, it feels like more of an accomplishment to get there, especially when, for example, hockey, basketball and MLS allow more than half of their teams to make the postseason.