Like anyone else around Cleveland, George Hoffman has gotten used to all the chatter about the city’s sports championship drought, about the fact that no major local team has won a trophy since 1964, about how LeBron James and the Cavaliers this month could end 51 years of fan suffering. 

But when Hoffman, 74, hears people rehashing those same old story lines, he has one thought: “They’re wrong, and it bothers the hell out of me,” he said, albeit in somewhat more colorful language. 

Hoffman, to be clear, has long been an admirer of James and would love to see the Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors and win their first N.B.A. title.  But he laughs at the idea of Cleveland as an accursed city of sports losers.  As one of the former owners of the Cleveland Crunch, he has the firsthand experience, and the championship rings, to claim otherwise. 

From 1994 to 1999, the Crunch won three titles in the National Professional Soccer League, forming a veritable dynasty of American indoor soccer.  So as far as Hoffman and his players are concerned, Cleveland’s so-called drought ended more than two decades ago — even if most people consider the Browns’ N.F.L. title in 1964 the city’s last professional championship.