Paranormal Activity: New York Knicks Blame Loss to Oklahoma City Thunder on Haunted Hotel

*Originally published on 1/22/10


In January 2010, the New York Knicks played the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Knicks ended up losing the game. On its surface, it's a fairly mundane scenario. One team has to lose and it wasn't like this was a major upset. Things got interesting shortly after, when the players blamed the loss on a lack of sleep.

Again, this isn't that uncommon, maybe there were noisy tenants in a nearby room, or there was construction, or maybe the beds just weren't comfortable. Nope, none of these were the cause of the players' insomnia. According to the team, they got set up in a haunted hotel and they were kept all night by spiritual sightings.

By spiritual sighting, I, of course, mean ghosts. This is such an odd story. They could have so easily said that the other team outplayed them or that they just weren't playing their best, but instead they decide to come out and say that they were haunted by ghosts.

This wasn't just some story that came off of a wacky tabloid like the Weekly World News either. The topic was discussed on two ESPN shows, first on Sportsnation, then on Around the Horn the next day. Most of the coverage was kind of snickering at the idea, but I wouldn't write it off just yet.

I already talked about the likelihood of such supernatural entities existing so I won't go into too much detail on that front, but there is a distinct possibility that the players are telling the truth.

For one thing, they don't really have a reason to lie. If they did feel that they needed to lie, why come up with a story about ghosts? Sleep deprivation can be caused by all sorts of things. They could have just as easily said that they had some bad fast food and their stomachs weren't agreeing with it.

From what I can gather, the whole team had some sort of encounter. If it were just one player, I would shrug and say OK, it was probably his mind playing tricks on him or it was just a vivid dream, but if the whole team saw the ghost? I think I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

I have to give the players credit, most athletes would try to be macho and play it off like it was nothing. They'd say the ghost was making noise or something to that effect, but they came out and said the experience creeped them the hell out. This a team from New York remember, people there have a reputation for not being easily spooked.

This is a unique event where it falls under "paranormal activity", but I very easily could have labeled this under the daily dose of awesome, because it is awesome. Even if most people lean towards the skeptical side of the spectrum, it gets people talking about the idea of ghosts. It's not everyday that mainstream newscasts will discuss the idea of a haunted hotel and being a paranormal aficionado, I get a kick out of it.