General

GIF Tournament IV: ‘Hockey Sorcery!’ vs. ‘Nerlens Noel’

After over 15,000 reader votes and some close calls, we’ve narrowed the 32 GIFs of GIF TOURNAMENT IV down to 16. Today, we vote to send eight of our favorites to the Elite Eight.

by Jon Bois

Jun 20, 2013, 2:45 PM UTC

GIF TOURNAMENT IV -- SWEET 16

(1) HOCKEY SORCERY! vs.
(9) NERLENS NOEL

Voting will remain open until 11:30 p.m. Eastern. Click here to view and vote on the rest of the Sweet 16.

(1) HOCKEY SORCERY!

Submitted by @BryanAGraham. Won Week 37 of THIS WEEK IN GIFs with 1,165 votes. Received 1,137 votes in Round 1.

You will never ever find a gif where people have sat and stared at it longer in one sitting than Hockey Sorcery.

- Valued Internet subscriber Jackson7

Every Chicago player has an inflatable ref in his uniform in case someone picks a fight. It’s like the inflatable auto-pilot on "Airplane!".

- Valued Internet subscriber csiems

I like to imagine that Kane and Franzen are arguing whether Rollerblading Raptor or Tim Lincecum is the greatest Sports GIF of all time.

It starts to get testy, and then the magical ref comes out of nowhere and says, "Don’t you understand, hockey bros? You’re already in the greatest Sports GIF of all time."

That’s probably what happened.

- Valued Internet subscriber Attie Hat

(9) NERLENS NOEL.

Finished second in Week 47 of THIS WEEK IN GIFs with 333 votes. Received 774 votes in Round 1.

Nerlens’ subtle eye twitch to check and see how good his hand wavin’ looks on TV is the “GIF behind the GIF” moment that sells it.

- Valued Internet subscriber Steve75

Cavaliers Promotional Campaign: 2013-2014 Season

1. Nerlens Noel Bobble-Hand Night

2. Mrs. Noel Wig Night

3. Cavalier Attitude Night (No rules, people can sit anywhere and bring whatever they want to the game)

4. Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Night (HOF inductees Abba and ZZ Top play concert simultaneously from opposite sides of the upper deck)

5. Repeat Steps 1-4 until you run out of home games.

- Valued Internet subscriber Area Sports Athlete