Primer for writing about Los Angeles and hockey

One of those things that screams "This journalist knows nothing about LA!" is using Los Angeles and Hollywood interchangeably. Hollywood is a neighborhood within Los Angeles. Think of it like how SoHo is a neighborhood in Manhattan or Lake View in Chicago. The only hockey player I know of with a house in Hollywood is Sean Avery who has a house in the Hollywood Hills. They're one of those many groups of hills around here that are always catching on fire. I don't even know if Avery still owns that house. Most of the Kings players live pretty far from Hollywood around Hermosa and Manhattan Beaches.

I have slept through earthquakes. I think 60° F is cold. I'm a native Southern Californian, and I've lived in LA for about seven years; but I have yet to find this mythical "Tinsel Town" place you people keep talking about. I can recite some really obscure bits of LA history, tell you how to avoid traffic around the Westside, and find the parking meter Gary Busey had an affair with, but no fucking Tinsel Town.

Hollywood is pink on purpose.*

• It does rain in Los Angeles.
• Areas of the Angeles National forest do get snow.
• We have many ice rinks. Youth and rec hockey are alive and well here.
• You can blame Orange County (and the Ducks) for soccer moms.
• Los Angeles is in Los Angeles County. Anaheim is in Orange County. Just because their baseball team changed their name doesn't make them any less not LA.
  
• Yes, there are a lot of distractions here, which is probably why we are able to do things besides watch hockey. I don't know what, but supposedly it's possible.
• Part of why hockey players are able to lead normal lives here is because being around celebrities eventually leads to apathy. We see them, we just don't care. Personally, I don't bother people when they are out grocery shopping, having dinner with the family, or walking their dogs because that would piss me off.
• I fucking hate the Lakers.

*from losangelesmap.org