Christmas Sports Trivia
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98 free Christmas Sports trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
42 free Christmas Sports trivia questions with answers. Sport does not stop for the holidays, and this quiz covers everything played between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day. It starts with the NBA's Christmas tradition since 1947, Bernard King's 60 points and the Knicks' record wins and losses; then the NFL's first Christmas games in 1971, including the longest game ever played, and the mud of the 1965 title game. Then the Boxing Day institutions: full football fixture lists in Britain, the Melbourne Test, the Sydney to Hobart yacht race and its 1998 tragedy, the King George VI Chase and Kauto Star. Plus the winter events that bridge the years: the Spengler Cup in Davos, the World Juniors, the Four Hills, the darts at Alexandra Palace, the Winter Classic, the Hawaii Bowl and the football match of the 1914 Christmas Truce. Easy questions suit anyone with a TV on Christmas Day; harder ones will test the fans of every code. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the events, and the source line appears under each question after you answer.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Through 2025, which was the only current NBA franchise never to have played on Christmas Day?
Charlotte Hornets
Charlotte Hornets teams had never been picked since the franchise began in 1988, because the league gives the holiday to title contenders and its biggest stars rather than to fixed hosts.
Q 02Which team had played the most NBA Christmas Day games, 58, through 2025?
New York Knicks
New York Knicks beat the Providence Steamrollers 89–75 on Christmas Day 1947, the first of their 58 holiday games through 2025, yet no team had lost more of them: 32.
Q 03Who scored 60 points on Christmas Day 1984, still the most in an NBA Christmas game through 2025?
Bernard King
Bernard King had 40 by half-time and finished with 60, yet his team still lost, 120–114 to the New Jersey Nets.
Q 04On Christmas Day 2004, Kobe Bryant's Lakers hosted which recently traded former teammate?
Shaquille O'Neal
Shaquille O'Neal's Miami Heat won 104–102 in overtime, and the feud drew such an audience that ABC asked for the same matchup on the next two Christmases.
Q 05How many Christmas Day wins had the Knicks, the NBA leader, recorded through 2025?
26
The Knicks played the very first Christmas game in 1947; through 2025 their holiday record stood at 26-32.
Q 06Which coach won his 1,000th NBA game on Christmas Day 2008?
Phil Jackson
Phil Jackson got there faster than any coach before him, and in style: his Lakers beat Boston 92–83 to end the Celtics' 19-game winning streak.
Q 07Which two stars did the NBA showcase in the Lakers' 2009 and 2010 Christmas home games?
Kobe Bryant and LeBron James
Kobe Bryant and LeBron James met both times, and the visitors spoiled the party: LeBron's Cavaliers won 102–87 in 2009 and his Heat won 96–80 in 2010.
Q 08What kept the NFL off Christmas Day for 17 seasons after 1971?
Fan complaints
Fan complaints about games on a family holiday grew louder when a double-overtime playoff ran into Christmas dinner; one state legislator even proposed banning play on December 25.
Q 09The longest game in NFL history, on Christmas Day 1971, pitted the Dolphins against which team?
Kansas City Chiefs
Kansas City Chiefs lost 27–24 in double overtime after Jan Stenerud missed a 31-yard field goal in the last minute of regulation; it was their final game at Municipal Stadium.
Q 10Which Dolphins kicker ended the NFL's longest game with a field goal on Christmas Day 1971?
Garo Yepremian
Garo Yepremian had come up short from 52 yards in the first overtime, then won it 27–24 with a 37-yarder midway through the second.
Q 11How long, in game time, was the longest NFL game ever?
82 minutes 40 seconds
A regulation game is 60 minutes.
Q 12The other NFL game on Christmas Day 1971 saw the Dallas Cowboys beat which team 20-12?
Minnesota Vikings
The Vikings outgained Dallas 311-183 but still lost.
Q 13The Boxing Day Test is played annually where?
The MCG
A Victoria v New South Wales Sheffield Shield match had been played there over Christmas since 1865.
Q 14In which year did the Australian Cricket Board formalise the Boxing Day Test tradition?
Q 21Which yacht set a Sydney to Hobart race record of 1 day, 9 hours, 15 minutes in 2017?
LDV Comanche
LDV Comanche was second across the line, but her protest over a near-collision at the start cost the leader a one-hour penalty, handing her both the win and the record.
Q 22During the 1914 Christmas Truce, British and German soldiers reportedly played which sport together?
Football
Football features in many accounts, but historians think most games were kickabouts between the trenches, some with a ration tin for a ball, rather than organised matches.
Q 23What was the score in Robert Graves's 1962 fictional Christmas Truce football match?
3-2 to the Germans
1980
It coincided with the Nine Network buying the TV rights.
Q 15The MCG's largest-ever Boxing Day crowd came in which year, for the fourth Ashes Test?
2025
Big Bash competition has made attendance vary in other years.
Q 16Sydney to Hobart yachts finish their race by sailing up which Tasmanian river?
The Derwent
The Derwent is where records are won and lost: in 1996 Morning Glory tacked up the river against the clock to beat a 21-year-old race record by 29 minutes.
Q 17The second NHL Winter Classic, in 2009, was played at which famous ballpark?
Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, suits the NHL because ballparks sit empty in winter while NFL stadiums are still in use; the event returned there for 2025.
Q 18The Sydney to Hobart began when a visiting officer from which navy suggested racing a planned cruise?
The Royal Navy
The Royal Navy's Captain John Illingworth made the suggestion and profited from it, winning the nine-boat first race in 1945 himself.
Q 19Which software billionaire's yacht Sayonara was first to finish the deadly 1998 Sydney to Hobart?
Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison's maxi reached Hobart first while the storm behind it sank five boats and killed six sailors; only 44 of the 115 starters finished, and crew rules were tightened afterwards.
Q 20Which Australian took six wickets for seven runs on debut in the 2021 Boxing Day Test?
Scott Boland
Scott Boland, a 32-year-old debutant on his home ground, needed only four overs for his six wickets, and the Test was over before lunch on the third day.
Many accounts of the truce mention football, but details vary and some are embellished.
Q 24The Spengler Cup, the world's oldest invitational hockey tournament, is played each year in which town?
Davos
Davos has hosted it since 1923, when local doctor Carl Spengler founded the cup to bring teams from nations divided by the First World War back onto the same ice.
Q 25Which club had won the most Spengler Cups, 17, by the end of 2025?
HC Davos
Swiss teams as a group had won 23 by then.
Q 26Which university's team of Canadian students won the first Spengler Cup in 1923?
Oxford
Oxford's side was built on Canadian Rhodes Scholars, which made it strong enough to win the cup again in 1925 and 1931.
Q 27Which horse won the King George VI Chase a record five times?
Kauto Star
Kauto Star won four in a row from 2006, lost his crown to Long Run, then won it back in 2011 to pass Desert Orchid's four victories.
Q 28The King George VI Chase is run at which racecourse?
Kempton Park
Kempton Park has sometimes had to give the race up: Sandown staged the snowed-off 1995 running in January 1996 and stepped in again in 2005 while Kempton was being redeveloped.
Q 29On which date does the IIHF World Junior Championship traditionally begin?
26 December
It runs to about January 5.
Q 30Which country led the World Juniors all-time gold count, with 20, at the end of 2025?
Canada
Canada had 20 golds but might have had more: in 1987 its team was thrown out, along with its opponents, after a 20-minute brawl that officials tried to stop by turning off the lights.