Going 55 on the 405.
Going 45 on the 101.
And the Kings winning the Stanley Cup.
Monday night, hell froze over.
In front of 19,000 fans at the Staples Center.
And at least 19,000 more watching on TV.
The Los Angeles Kings hoisted the Cup for the first time in franchise history.
And while I was never the biggest Kings fan.
I always loved hockey.
I loved it so much that I used to travel from Southern California to Eastern Canada.
3,005 miles.
4,836 kilometers.
Just to watch my favorite team play the sport I loved the most.
The Quebec Nordiques.
But following the labor stoppage in 1994.
And the Nordiques moving to Denver in 1995.
My love for the game had disappeared.
The sport I always called my “favorite” had faded away.
In fact, Monday night was probably the first start-to-finish hockey game I watched in at least ten years.
Ok, maybe eight.
But the point is, for whatever reason I’d rather watch ice melt than ice hockey.
Oh I tried to find the magic again.
I even started a fantasy hockey league this year.
But even that didn’t work.
If it wasn’t for my hometown team trying to make history on Monday night, I probably would’ve been watching The Bachelorette.
This coming from a guy who used to buy the $5 seats to sit at the top of the Fabulous Forum.
To just watch hockey.
All the way at the top.
I was sitting in those seats on April 10, 1990.
The night of the hat trick.
Three different Kings scored three goals.
In the same game.
The same playoff game.
Dave Taylor.
Tomas Sandstrom.
And Tony Granato.
The only time in NHL playoff history that has ever happened.
Ever!
The Kings beat Calgary that night, 12-4.
But two short weeks later, that season was over.
Over without a championship.
Just like every season before it.
And every season after it.
Until Monday night.
Unfortunately I can’t remember my first Kings game.
But I could never forget what they were wearing.
Talk about retro.
Those uniforms were so bright, you could actually see them from the top of the arena.
Purple and gold became the signature of LA’s hockey team.
That and the fact that they could never win the big one.
14 times in their first 20 years the Kings made the playoffs.
And 14 times they got eliminated.
Eliminated without even getting a sniff of the Stanley Cup.
But that all changed in the summer of 1988.
August 9th to be exact.
That was the day the Kings acquired The Great One.
The day Wayne Gretzky brought hockey to Southern California.
Or so they say.
It took Gretzky five minutes to put the Kings on the map.
And five years to put the Kings in the Stanley Cup finals.
But even with all of Hollywood behind them, the Kings couldn’t find a script with a happy ending.
Losing the 1993 championship to Montreal, four games to one.
Gretzky stayed in LA for two more years, but he never even got the Kings back to the playoffs.
In fact only one time in the next 17 years did the Kings even win a playoff series.
And this year wasn’t supposed to be any different.
The Kings barely skated their way into the post-season.
Finishing with the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
But instead of folding like the teams before them.
This group of Kings became different.
They became royalty.
They disposed of the #1 seed from Vancouver.
Then the #2 team from St. Louis.
Then the #3 team from Phoenix.
And before you knew it they were just one win away from bringing the Stanley Cup to Los Angeles.
That win came Monday night, in front of the home folk.
On TV it appeared that the Staples Center had never been louder.
And why not, LA fans do love a winner.
And winning is what the Kings did.
Erasing the memories of the four plus decades before them.
Beating New Jersey to win the Stanley Cup.
6-1.
They won it for Marcel Dionne.
And Jerry Korab.
They won it for my friend Phil.
And my friend Erik.
They won it for the dozens of fans who watched hockey in LA before Gretzky got there.
And the dozens more who watched it after he left.
Believe it or not, the LA Kings had won the Stanley Cup.
There was a time when that would’ve been a big deal in my life.
But on this Monday night, it was just something to watch.
1 comment:
I was at that 1990 Triple Hat Trick game - I got more of a workout from getting up and celebrating each goal - than the Flames did in playing that game. As for Quebec - Dec 7, 1991 was the 50th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor but on that day I was at Le Colisse in Quebec to see the Kings play Les Nords and win. After the game my group somehow got down to the area outside the Kings' lockerroom where I saw Jari Kurri. I had a friend (who shall go nameless :-) take a pic of me and Jari. I was standing so close to Jari that you couldn't stick a piece of Biggie meat between us yet SOMEHOW this "nameless" friend took a pic and I was not in it. I won't name this friend but he knows who he is :-) All ya need to know about Game 6 was the final few seconds were counted down by Kings' fan - something that NEVER happens in the NHL. TYVM Kings for doing something I NEVER thought I would get to see in my lifetime. GO KINGS GO!!!!!!!!
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