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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/McWaylon on 2025-12-24 23:48:58+00:00.
The collapse: BC was riding an unbeaten season and was no 1. A berth in the Sugar Bowl and possible national title was in sight. All they had to do was win their last game of the season against their wee little rival Holy Cross at Fenway Park and its all sunshine and rainbows. HC was unranked and sporting a 4-4-1 record, BC is so confident that celebrations are already planned and possible parades are being discussed. You all know how this one goes…HC beats the **** out of BC 55-12. Boston is crestfallen, all celebrations are canceled, and the players go back to their rooms cussing and defeated.
Why it was lucky: That very night that BC got curb stomped, their victory party was planned at the famous Boston nightspot: The Cocoanut Grove. Never heard of it? Well it was thanks to being overpacked the first thanksgiving since Pearl Harbor and a underage busboy accidently lighting a match in a gas fume-ridden room that the whole place ignited and became the worst nightclub fire in history. Due to having only one faulty turnstile front door and no other exits nearly 500 people are dead. The owner Barney Welansky is busted for numerous violations which due to good ol’ Boston corruption he was allowed to operate until disaster struck. Welansky would die just 4 years later due to cancer after being set free from prison just before he dies, in his interview he said he wished he had died in the fire as well. Numerous heads roll, building laws are strictly recalibrated and everyone forgets about the disaster that happened at Fenway earlier that day. Ill bet you those BC players sometimes thought to themselves that blowing it on such a grand scale ended up saving their lives.
Ill link two articles for you to peruse the subject: news.holycross.edu/…/holy-cross-footballs-histori…