Vote: In Which League Is It Most Difficult to Win Back-to-Back Championships?

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Oct 6, 2011

Vote: In Which League Is It Most Difficult to Win Back-to-Back Championships? The Boston Bruins open up their title defense on Thursday night against the Philadelphia Flyers. It is the first of 82 regular-season games and an unknown number of postseason games that the Bruins will use as an opportunity to try to become the first repeat Stanley Cup champions since the Detroit Red Wings in 1998.

It begs the question: In which professional sports league is winning back-to-back championships most difficult?

The Patriots did it in the NFL in 2003 and ’04, and the Broncos and Cowboys were both repeat winners in the ’90s. The Packers, Dolphins, Steelers and 49ers have also won consecutive championships in the 45-year history of the Super Bowl.

This decade has seen the Lakers win back-to-back titles in the NBA, as well as threepeats from the Lakers and Bulls in the past two decades. The list of champions from 1987-2002 actually looks like this: Lakers, Lakers, Pistons, Pistons, Bulls, Bulls, Bulls, Rockets, Rockets, Bulls, Bulls, Bulls, Spurs, Lakers, Lakers, Lakers.

In MLB, only the Red Sox won multiple championships this decade, though the Yankees won three out of four from 1996-2000. The Blue Jays also repeated in the early ’90s.

Then, there is hockey. The Red Wings (’97, ’98) and Penguins (’91, ’92) are the only repeat champs in the past two decades, but the Oilers and Islanders owned the ’80s with eight combined championships.

In which league is it most difficult to repeat as champion?

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