"The Championship" redirects here. For the English football competition, see Football League Championship; for the English rugby league competitions, see Championship (rugby league) and Championship 1; for the English rugby union competition, see RFU Championship; for the Southern Hemisphere rugby union competition formerly known as the Tri Nations, see The Rugby Championship.

"Championship game" redirects here. In American English, "championship game" refers to the final game of a single-elimination tournament.

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2010)

Championship is a term used in sport to refer to various forms of competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion.

Championship systems[link]

Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship.

Title match system[link]

In this system, a competitor has to challenge the current champion to win the championship. This form of championship is used in wrestling, boxing, and other combat sports.

Tournament system[link]

The term championships (in the plural) is often used to refer to tournament competitions, either using a knockout format, such as at Wimbledon and other championships in tennis, or a mixed format with a group stage followed by knockout rounds, such as used in the European Football Championships.

A variation of the knockout format is the "best-of-X" or series format where two teams face other for a specified number of times until one team wins the majority of specified games, most of the time the remaining games are not played anymore; only then is the losing team eliminated from contention and the winning team advances to the next level. This format is predominant in American sports such as baseball, ice hockey and basketball, and on test cricket.

League system[link]

Championships in various sports, including rugby union and association football (soccer) use a league system in which all competitors in the league play each other, either once or a number of times.

Playoff system[link]

In many sport leagues, a playoff system is used to determine a championship winner. Teams compete in a regular season of varying formats and a limited number of teams qualify for playoffs. Although this system is mostly identified with the United States and Canada, it is frequently found in other North American countries, and is also standard in sports influenced by North America (e.g. basketball, baseball, ice hockey) as well as most football codes other than association football (soccer). The playoffs (known in some countries, notably Australia, as the "finals series") are a tournament where teams play head-to-head in knockout competition. The championship is often considered the final of the playoffs (e.g., Super Bowl, Stanley Cup Final, NBA Finals, World Series, etc.). The playoff system can be seen as a hybrid between the league system and tournament system, where a league is used to determine qualifiers for the tournament.

In the NFL, the term "Championship game" is used to refer to the matches which decide the champions of each of the two conferences, the NFC and AFC. These games are effectively semi-finals as they determine the two competitors in the Super Bowl.

Usage in English football[link]

In English football, since the 2004-2005 season, The Championship has been used to refer to the second level of league football, properly called the Football League Championship. The Championship is one division below the FA Premier League and a division above Football League One. It had previously been known as the Football League First Division.

Usage in professional wrestling[link]

See also[link]

Championship (dog)

The Championship[link]

The championship may refer to :

• The Championship, an alternate name for the Football League Championship
• The Championship (TV series), a Football League highlights programme in the UK
• The Rugby Championship, the name for the Southern Hemisphere rugby union competition known as the Tri Nations before Argentina's entry in 2012
• The Rugby Football League Championship, England's pre-Super League competition
• The Rugby Football League Championships, an alternative name for the English Co-Operative Rugby League Championship and Co-Operative Rugby League Championship 1.
• The RFU Championship, the second tier of English rugby union, below the Aviva Premiership
• The Championships, Wimbledon, the oldest and most prestigious tennis tournament in the world
• The Championship Course, the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race Thames course
• The Championships at the Palisades, an event in the Outback Champions Series for senior tennis players

Carmen Salvino (born November 23, 1933) is a professional ten-pin bowler and a founding member of the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA). Salvino won 17 PBA Tour titles –- among them the 1962 PBA National Championship. He also won two PBA Senior Tour titles, including the 1984 Senior National Championship. The right-handed bowler was among the eight original inductees to the PBA Hall of Fame in 1975, and is also a member of the USBC Hall of Fame (inducted 1979), the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame (inducted 1985), the Illinois Sports Hall of Fame, and the Chicago Sports Hall of Fame.

Salvino now resides in Schaumburg, IL (USA), and has remained active in various capacities of the PBA -- including ambassador, executive board, and tournament committee positions, as well as one term as PBA president (1985-86).

Despite all his victories, Salvino listed a loss to his good friend Dick Weber in the finals of the 1988 PBA Showboat Senior Invitational among his most memorable tournaments. Although both Salvino and Weber were original PBA members when the organization was founded in 1958, the two had never met in a televised match until this 1988 tour stop.^[1]

Salvino has made a number of memorable marks on the sport of bowling throughout his seven decades (1950s-2011): champion, Hall-of-Famer, showman and entertainer, bowling ball scientist in the areas of physics and chemistry, bowling ambassador, as well as bowling health enthusiast.

During the 1970s, Salvino claimed to have based his bowling style on a mathematical equation, of which he never revealed. The equation covered the bowling stance and ball delivery that stressed accuracy. ^[2]

Salvino was ranked #17 on the PBA's 2008 list of "50 Greatest Players of the last 50 years."

Resources[link]

• www.pba.com, official website of the Professional Bowlers Association and the PBA Tour
• Carmen Salvino's daughter Corinne Miller

References[link]

1. ^ "The sounds and the furious...", article by Carmen Salvino and Dick Denny, Bowling Digest, June, 2003.
2. ^ http://www.sj-r.com/sports/x6415431/Former-Boy-Wonder-Salvino-as-colorful-as-ever