The Stanley Cup final has been set since Sunday night when the Edmonton Oilers overtook the Dallas Stars in game six of the Western Conference final. With that, not only is the Stars season over, but the city of Dallas lost the chance to have World Series champions and Stanley Cup champions in the same year. The Texas Rangers won the World Series last fall for the first time in franchise history.
The Dallas Stars missed a chance to make unique sports history for their city.
Cities hosting both the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup is a rare but not entirely uncommon occurrence. That’s what happened last year when the South Florida and Miami regions had both the Miami Heat and Florida Panthers advance to their respective league finals. With the Dallas Mavericks making the NBA finals the Stars had a chance to do it as well. There has never been a time a city had NHL and NBA champions in the same year, although there are plenty examples of one or the other winning or both losing (like South Florida last year).
Teams having champions in Major League Baseball and the NHL is incredibly rare, but it has happened. Only once in the post 1967 NHL expansion era has a city had both a Stanley Cup champion and World Series champion. That was back in 2000 when the New Jersey Devils won the Stanley Cup and the New York Yankees won their third straight World Series. Yes, New Jersey technically isn’t New York, but it’s the same media market for sports purposes.
There’s two examples from the pre 1967 expansion era. Both also include New York City. First in 1928 the Yankees won the World Series while the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup. Then in 1933 the Rangers would again be cup champions while the New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants) won the World Series.
There are three examples of a city’s NHL team winning the Stanley Cup while their MLB team falls short in the World Series. In 1981 the New York Islanders won their second of four straight Stanley Cups while the Yankees fell to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. In 2003 the Devils would win their third Stanley Cup in franchise history while the Yankees fell in the World Series to the Florida Marlins. In 2020 te Tampa bay Lightning would win the Stnaley Cup, in an arena without fans, while the Tampa Bay Rays fell to the Los Angeles dodgers in a neutral site World Series.
There’s a small handful of times a city’s MLB team has been champions with their NHL team falling short. The only post NHL expansion example was in 2013 when the Boston Bruins lost in the cup final to the Chicago Blackhawks while the Boston Red Sox won the World Series. In the pre expansion era, 1932, 1937, and 1950 all had the Yankees winning and the Rangers losing. 1945 saw the Detroit Tigers win the World Series while the Red Wings lost in the cup final.
There’s only three times both an MLB and NHL team from the same city lost in the finals of their respective sports. The only post NHL expansion example was in 2001 when the Devils and Yankees lost. The New York Giants were also losers in the Super Bowl that season, so it wasn’t New York’s best year falling up short in three different sports. In 1934 Detroit saw the Tigers and Red Wings lose and Boston had the same fate in 1946 with the Bruins and Red Sox.
Obviously this list is skewed because of New York. The New York media market is the only one in the country, other than Los Angeles, with at least two teams in each of the four major professional sports league. It has held that distinction longer than Los Angeles, and it’s the only current city with three teams in one sports because between the Rangers, Islanders and Devils there are three NYC area teams in the NHL. All three have made at least one cup final in a year where their baseball brethren made a World Series.
Before 1958 when the Dodgers and Giants moved to California New York also had three MLB teams, along with the “original six” franchise Rangers. Boston and Tampa are the only cities other than New York in the post 1967 expansion era to even have their baseball teams and hockey team reach the finals. Boston did used to have a second baseball team, the Boston turned Milwaukee turned now Atlanta Braves, who never made the World Series the same season as the Bruins. Dallas could have joined that list, but now it’s Connor McDavid and the Oilers than will try to break an even longer drought: bringing the Stanley Cup back to Canada.