One of the things that always captivates fans in sports is a historic streak. Be it a winning streak, losing streak, hitting streak, just something that reaches epic proportions and keep fans tuning in.
When fans think of historic winning streaks, the UConn women’s basketball team comes to mind, so does the UCLA men’s basketball team in the 60s and 70s.
One streak that may not have been given much attention in the national media but has been the talk of indoor football (yes, people talk indoor football online) was the winning streak of the Sioux Falls Storm of the Indoor Football League.
You’ll notice I used the word was, which lets you know that streak ended.
On Saturday night the Wichita Falls Nighthawks ended the Storm’s 68-game home winning streak with a 36-21 win at the Sanford Premier Center.
The streak dated back to 2010, featured countless teams that don’t exist anymore, and spanned two arenas. That’s right, the home winning streak was so long that the Storm had never lost in their current arena.
The Storm’s last loss on their home field was on May 15, 2010 when the Omaha Beef, who now play in a different league, knocked off the storm with a 43-37 win at the Sioux Falls Arena.
To give you some perspective, it’s the longest home winning streak that I have been able to find among pro or Division 1 NCAA football. The longest home winning streak in NFL history was by the Miami Dolphins 27-game streak that spanned from Oct. 17, 1971 to Dec. 15, 1974. In NCAA Division 1 football, the Miami Hurricanes boasted a 58-game streak at the Orange Bowl from Oct. 12, 1985, to Sept. 24, 1994.
Indoor football records across all leagues are pretty spotty, because they constantly fold, move, rename, or pop up out of nowhere, but it is safe to say that this is the longest home winning streak in pro football history, and one that will likely never be broken, mainly due to the reasons you see listed up above.
Now, just for fun, here are a few more notable home-winning streaks in North American pro and major college sports.
NCAA Men’s Basketball: University of Kentucky, 129 games from Jan. 2, 1943, to Jan. 8, 1955. Twelve years spanning three United States Presidents and featuring three NCAA titles during that time.
NCAA Women’s Basketball: University of Connecticut, 99 games, ending in 2012 with a loss to the St. John’s Red Storm, 57–56.
NHL Hockey: 2011-12 Detroit Red Wings, 23 games. Amazingly, the Red Wings fared the worst of all the teams to put up an amazing home win streak, getting knocked out in the first round of the 2012 playoffs by the Nashville Predators.
MLB: 1978 Boston Red Sox, 1988 Pittsburgh Pirates, 24 games. The Pirates’ run spanned the end of the regular season, almost reaching the next season before they dropped their final home game of 1988. The Red Sox reached the ALCS the season of their streak.
NBA: Golden State Warriors, 54 games. This one one that spanned two seasons, and ironically ended with a loss on April Fools’ Day of 2016 with a loss to the Boston Celtics.
So there you go, an amazing streak has come to an end. And there’s a few other home winning streaks to compare it to just so you can see how impressive it was.
Great journalism. You should send it to SI orESPN mag to see if they will buy and run it. Proud of you