Earlier this month, on a Monday night after a long day of classes, I retreated to my apartment to try and enjoy what I thought was going to be a complete Monday Night Football slaughter by the Dallas Cowboys of my Buffalo Bills.

When I turned on the TV, however, I was both shocked and confused by what I saw. At first I thought it was a dream. I looked over at my roommate, a fellow Buffalonian, who confirmed to me that what was happening was real.

The Bills were up 24-13 at the end of the third quarter. “America’s Team” had given up five turnovers, two of which the Bills promptly capitalized on. The odds had gone in our favor and we were on the verge of beating an undefeated N.F.L. team.

Long story short, this night was either do or die, not only for the Bills, but for the fans as well.

And in the end, what do you think happened? They died. The Cowboy’s “It” boy, Tony Romo, drove the ball 80 yards down field for a touchdown. But then there was a flash of hope. Dallas failed on the two-point conversion, leaving the game at 24-22. We still had a chance. Unfortunately, the Cowboys held their ground.

On average, about 23 percent of onside kicks are successful. That night, the Cowboys added to that statistic. After recovering their kickoff, Dallas drove just far enough for kicker Nick Folk to nail a 53-yard field goal. Buffalo, in a strategic but dirty move, called time out right before the play so as to “ice” Folk. This effort was useless, however, as Nick Folk nailed the field goal again, almost identically. [1] Dallas wins 25-24.

Now, I imagine that those of you who are not from Buffalo are all asking the same question: What’s the big deal? These things happen. Those of you from Buffalo, however, are more than likely asking yourselves the same question I was screaming that night: Why does this always happen? Why are we cursed?

Here’s a short history and geography lesson for you all: [2] Buffalo is a metropolitan city residing in the western part of New York State and on the eastern end of Lake Erie. It is the second largest city in New York, holding a population of about 300,000. For a long time, the city was involved in railroad commerce, automobile production, and the manufacturing of steel. These industries have since left the area. Thus, many residents began to vacate the city over the past 50 years or so. This caused significant and noticeable economic and social decline in the city, which to this day Buffalo has never really recovered from.

Despite these losses and setbacks, many people remained in Buffalo, clinging to two of its most prominent attractions: the professional football and hockey teams, the [3] Buffalo Bills and [4] Buffalo Sabres. For many people, myself included, these two teams have brought some of the most memorable moments in sports history. They’ve also brought some of the toughest.

Established in 1960 as a part of the A.F.L. (American Football league), the Buffalo Bills have arguably been the heart and soul of the city for years now. Unfortunately, the Bills have failed to produce a Super Bowl win since the league’s merger with the N.F.L. The team did manage to go to the Super Bowl four times in a row between 1991 and 1994, however.

They lost every time.

Each loss carries its own story. Super Bowl XXV will always be remembered for the missed field goal sent [5] wide right at the end of the game by kicker Scott Norwood, giving the New York Giants a 20-19 victory. In Super Bowl XXVI versus the Washington Redskins, Buffalo halfback Thurman Thomas misplaced his helmet at the beginning of the game, causing him to miss the first few plays. Super Bowls XXVII and XXVIII, both played against the formidable Dallas Cowboys, were quite possibly the hardest losses of the series, with the former being a complete 52-17 blowout and the latter featuring an unanswered 24-point-second-half-meltdown and “America’s Team” winning 30-13.

Since then, Buffalo has often been considered one of the most mediocre teams in the league. Really Buffalo’s only moment of promise in the past decade was an AFC Wildcard appearance in January of 2000. The moment known as the “[6] Music City Miracle,” in which the opposing Tennessee Titans lateraled twice in a well-executed trick play to come back and secure advancement into the playoffs, will be infamous in the city for years. I, to this day, still cannot remove the play from my head.

Our NHL team, the Buffalo Sabres, has faced many hardships in the league since their 1970 inception. In Game Six of the 1999 Stanley Cup Finals, Dallas Stars center Brett Hull scored the winning goal in triple overtime when his skate entered the goalie’s crease before the puck did. At the time, this was an illegal maneuver in the NHL. The officials reasoned that the goal was justifiable due to prior possession rules by Hull, however. This event is commonly referred to as the [7] “No Goal” controversy.

In the past two seasons, the Sabres have continually been labeled as one of the best teams in the NHL. Last season, the team held the best record in the league and claimed the coveted President’s Trophy. Despite revitalized team and fan morale and being ranked 1^st in the ESPN’s top sports franchises in North America, the Sabres still fell short in the Eastern Conference Finals both years.

Cursed is a strong word that has been thrown around a lot in the city and in the sports world. But is it the right word to use?

“I believe that Buffalo sports have experienced several phenomenal coincidences in its history,” says Ben Switzer, a junior biology major at [8] Ithaca College and Buffalo resident for almost 15 years. “And since almost all of these coincidences have resulted in a form of dramatic tragedy, then I could see how it could be viewed as a curse.”

College may be the worst place in the world to be a Buffalo sports fan. You are thrown into new situations with people whose sports backgrounds are usually drastically different from that of a fan of Buffalo sports. Even more disheartening, the “curse” on Buffalo sports is not a secret, either. Being a fan of Buffalo sports may lead to harsh ridicule and taunting by your peers, which fans have to learned to handle accordingly.

“I proudly dismiss their teams, because Buffalo teams will always have so much more character and charisma,” says Andrew Emhof, a junior engineering major at the [9] Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and native of South Buffalo. “There are no bandwagon Bills fans.”

Others, such as [10] University of Pittsburgh chemical engineering major Michaelangelo Tabone, brush off scathing remarks, citing that no one can understand Buffalo’s plight unless they come from the city.

“It makes me feel the same way it makes me feel when any random schmoe says anything negative about sports— like he doesn’t know anything beyond some CBS anchor’s delightful commentary,” Tabone says.

Many Boston sports fans claimed a “curse” had been lifted off the city when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004. This always made very little sense to me. Just down the street there was a little team named the Celtics that produced 16 NBA championships, including eight over the course of a decade. Or was that not enough?

Just to put things in perspective, Buffalo is having their eighth quarterback change in 10 years and is struggling for a chance at wildcard berth. The Boston Red Sox just won the World Series, and the Boston Celtics and New England Patriots both appear to be on track to winning championships in all of their respective sports.

I’m sorry if I have little sympathy for the “curse” in Boston.

The Bills lost their starting quarterback, J.P. Losman, for a few weeks this season due to injury. First-round draft pick Paul Posluszny is gone for the season with a broken forearm, and this is our first season in five years without Nate Clements, arguably one of the best cornerbacks in the game. The Sabres let go of two key players over the off-season, co-captains Daniel Briere and Chris Drury. Briere and Drury were considered by many fans to be the hearts of the team that were quintessential in Buffalo reaching the Conference Finals the past two years.

In short, it appears as if more troubling times lie ahead for the city of Buffalo.

To say that a city’s sports teams are cursed may be a little drastic. But what else is there left to do when continually getting close and falling short becomes your M.O.?

Personally, I feel as if there is no curse in Buffalo, just a long series of unfortunate moments. These events have, in turn, produced a negative stigma regarding the city and its teams. I’d like to call them coincidences, really. Coincidences can go away. Curses seem much more permanent and malignant.

On the upside, these coincidences have also produced two significant positive outcomes: pride and unity.

No matter how bad things get, Buffalo sports fans will always fiercely defend their teams, and we are united in doing so. We’ve had unfortunate things happen to our teams, but we’ve had them together. Emhof’s quote above could not have been truer: There are no bandwagon Buffalo fans. We’re in it for the long haul.

So what’s my advice to other Buffalonian college students? Wait. Be patient. Take the hits and show pride. So when it comes, and it will, it’ll be completely worth it.

As Switzer puts it, “We may not frequently make it to the very top, but what we have done is extremely respectable and magical at points, which builds a character of a fan that is rarely seen. So people who speak poorly of Buffalo usually are just unaware of the fact that we don’t necessarily need to be the best in order to be proud of our city and its teams.