Capitalizing on the losses of others

Us LA Kings fans take a lot of flack for being Kings fans. Our team hasn't seen the playoffs in seven seasons. While I was in North Carolina earlier this year, a Canes fan told me, "You aren't a real fan until your team sucks."

So the last time I saw playoff hockey in Los Angeles I was still living two hours away (I moved to LA in 2003). The last playoff hockey I saw inside the Staples was this game in 2001:



I called myself in sick from school (cell phones and sounding like one of your parents are awesome things at that age) and headed down to LA in my piece of shit 10 year-old Ford. If you actually watch the end of that video, you can hear Bob Miller, the happiest I remember hearing him. There was crying. There was hugging of strangers. There were Red Wings' tears. Delicious Red Wings' tears, which taste like Swedish meatballs.

Last night was a pretty lackluster game for the Kings. A disappointment after Thursday, one of the worst days of Roberto Luongo's life.




The seats I had last night often have the visiting team's fans behind them. Last night was no except. A pair of exceptionally dumb Ducks fans sat right behind me. One, these people thought the Ducks stood a chance of getting the 8th seed. This would require not only for the Ducks to win all their upcoming games, but for Colorado and Calgary to lose theirs. Two, the amazing insight of things like "why don't they go down the middle?" Oh, I don't know, because when defensemen do their jobs going down the middle usually isn't an option.

Last night went into a shootout. The first two shooters, as all of us Kings fans know, are always Anze Kopitar and Jack Johnson. The third was Dustin Brown. OK, Dustin Brown just came off of a hat trick on Thursday, but I knew somewhere in the back of my head that there had to be someone better than Brown to go third.


That someone is Michal Handzus.

The big news is, with Calgary's regulation loss today, the LA Kings are going to the playoffs for the first time in eight years!



You know what would've been real cool. Watching the Chicago game at home instead of having to go to a bar, but Calgary isn't one of NBC's 6 teams that they always show.


Rangers are the only wild card in there.

...but watching the game at a bar did mean I got to watch some table dancing after Calgary lost. Baja Mexico also wanted celebrate, 'cause that's how we roll.