Must narrative stuff end happily?

Most of my long gamer/event pieces became narratives; at least that's what contest judges wrote. I won 1st and 2nd this year in weekly sports "news" stories, one of which was a girls hoops state title game, the other a 2-day state decathlon. The decathlon story ended on a positive note though the last sentence was a fact about the competition. One of the better things I've written. I'll never forget those two days in Nashua, and the last event is one of those "moments" you tell grandkids about.