page_title: Sports in Boston
section_title: 21st century sporting success
hierarchical_section_title: Sports in Boston / 21st century sporting success
caption_attribution_description: 19:42, 10 September 2006 . . Aido2002 . . 3264×2448 (1,523,517 bytes) (The view from the Green Monster.)
context_page_description: Boston, the capital city of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and largest city in New England, is home to several major league sports teams. They include the Red Sox, the Celtics, and the Bruins. The New England Patriots and the New England Revolution play at Gillette Stadium in nearby Foxborough. The New England Free Jacks play at Union Point Sports Complex in nearby Weymouth. Several Boston-area colleges and universities are also active in college athletics.
  Sports are a major part of the city's culture. Boston sports fans are known for their fanatical devotion to the Red Sox and knowledge of the team's history. However, in recent memory Boston is now known as a football town, as the Patriots have long seized the title as the most popular team in New England. Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox, is the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball and holds a legendary status among baseball fans.
context_section_description: Since the turn of the century, Boston's professional sports teams have won 12 championships: six by the Patriots (Super Bowls XXXVI (2001), XXXVIII (2003), XXXIX (2004), XLIX (2014), LI (2016), and LIII (2018)), four by the Red Sox (2004, 2007, 2013, and 2018) and one each by the Celtics (2008) and the Bruins (2011) respectively. Their sports teams have also appeared an additional 11 times as league finalists: five by the Revolution (2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2014), three by the Patriots (Super Bowls  XLII (2007), XLVI (2011), and LII (2017)), two by the Bruins (2013, and 2019) and one by the Celtics (2010). The recent sporting success of their teams has given rise to the city's monicker as the "City of Champions", and "Titletown". 
  In the 2000s, Boston's professional teams had what was argued to be the most successful decade in sports history, winning six championships (three by the Patriots, two by the Red Sox, and one by the Celtics), while also appearing an additional five times as league finalists (four by the Revolution, one by the Patriots). 
  In the 2010s, their professional teams rivaled their 2000s achievements, winning six additional championships (three by the Patriots, two by the Red Sox, and one by the Bruins), while also appearing an additional six times as league finalists (two by the Patriots, two by the Bruins, one by the Celtics, and one by the Revolution). 
  When the Bruins won the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals, the city of Boston became the first city in the 21st century to have all four of its major professional league teams win a league championship, and became the only city to ever have championships in all four major professional leagues within a ten-year span, accomplishing this feat in a span of six years, four months, and nine days (from the Patriots' championship win on February 6, 2005 to the Bruins' championship win on June 15, 2011). This sporting achievement was what Dan Shaughnessy of Sports Illustrated dubbed as Boston completing the "Grand Slam of North American sports." 
  The Bruins reaching the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals also allowed Boston to join Philadelphia and Los Angeles as being the only cities to have had all of their teams play in each of the four major North American professional sports leagues' title rounds since 2000. In addition, Boston beat out Philadelphia for playing in all of the "big" league championship rounds in the shortest time in the new millennium by doing so within a span of three years, seven months, and four days (from the Red Sox's World Series win on October 28, 2007, to the Bruins playing Game 1 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals on June 1, 2011); it took nine years for Philadelphia to achieve this in contrast. However, Philadelphia holds the all-time record for achieving this feat, having set the record much earlier between 1980 and 1981 when all four major league teams played in their respective championship games within an eight month span. When the Bruins reached the 2013 Stanley Cup Finals, Boston became the only city to have had all of their major league teams play in their leagues' championship title rounds two times or more this century.
  Since 2002, DUKWs (aka "duck boats") provided by Boston Duck Tours have been used as Boston's championship parade vehicles, starting with the New England Patriots after the Patriots won Super Bowl XXXVI over the St. Louis Rams. As a result of this recent practice, the catch phrase "cue the duck boats" has been utilized whenever a Boston sports team has won a championship in advance of its celebratory parade. While much of the parade routes over the years consisted of the duck boats staying on land, some featured them traversing both the land and across the Charles River.
caption: The view from atop the Green Monster at modern day Fenway Park
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "SP350", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Version 1.1", "Image DateTime": "2006:09:05 16:22:43", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "996", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 37, 0, 1, 0, 20, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5620", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5356", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/80", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Creative", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:09:05 16:22:43", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:09:05 16:22:43", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "297/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "93/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1714", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}