BEST game you ever saw

"Again" applies to me with regard to my team (Syracuse) getting that close, and then coming up short, like my other team (the Cubs) did seven years later.

Yes, I'm fully aware they hadn't won a playoff series since 1908 and haven't been close since 2003. ESPN does quite nicely beating that dead horse, too.

 

Game one of the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals was great. Up-and-down game, with both teams just keeping on coming at each other. And, of course, ends with the Roloson injury and the Jason Smith gaffe. It was anti-climatic, but also fitting, that a game like that would end with not a spectacular goal, but Brind'Amour tapping it in on an empty net.

Also great was this year's boys' basketball state championship game. Local team is in first state title game in exactly 40 years; the school is a dump and looked down at by both other schools in the county. A girls' team from the other side of the county is also playing right after, so the whole county is there cheering on both. Team just fights and fights and fights some more. Kids that were bit players come up huge, making big plays against guys far better than them. Favorite was a bench guy, whose mother had died a season before. He was on the team as a sophomore (his brother was a senior and coach wanted mother to only have to watch one game), then left to take care of her as a junior. Came back, didn't want to talk about what happened but ended up just playing out of his mind-defense. They end up taking the lead several times, looking like they might come out with it. Eventually, they lose in heartbreaking fashion and kid who had scored 26 points starts crying and pulling his jersey over his head. Front-page photo the next day, across six columns, was this kid bawling.

 

I thought about Game 1, App, but it really was only a great 25 minutes, IMO. Edmonton was all over Carolina for damn near the whole first two periods. It looked like a rout for about 30 minutes. That third period, though ... my God, that had everything.

I'm going to go with Game 7, though, just for the experience.

 

Game 1 probably has gotten better in retrospect. The whole series was pretty damn entertaining. Game 7 was good, but Carolina was so dominating the last 45 minutes the result wasn't really in doubt.

 

In-person:
*-Not a game, but the 2006 Indy 500, with Sam Hornish passing Marco Andretti in the last 100 yards. The last 4 laps were simply electric.
*-Games 4 & 6 of the 1997 NBA Eastern Conference Finals. When Reggie Miller hit a 3 from the wing to win Game 4 for the Pacers, I thought the roof was going to come off Market Square Arena. Game 6 was less spectacular, but also went down to the wire with Travis Best hitting a short shot in the lane and Michael Jordan falling down with the ball on the final two posssessions.
*-2004: Colts 34, Chargers 31, OT. Colts down the whole game. Peyton Manning breaks the record for TD passes in a season on the tying TD (and then converts the 2-point conversion to send it to OT).
*-1999: Indiana 53, Minnesota 49. It wasn't exactly artistic if you like defense, but this might have been the best single-game performance of Antwaan Randle El's career at IU. He did everything that day, including recover the on-side kick that clinched the game.

Prep division:
*-The 2005 Class 3A Indiana state basketball final, decided when Luke Zeller hit a half-court shot at the buzzer, but a pretty good game throughout. (honorable mention: A 117-113 2OT game between 2A Alexandria & 1A Lafayette Catholic in the ill-fated IHSAA Tournament of Champions in 1998).