Memories On Ice

There are certain things in Los Angeles that you can’t even imagine.

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.

Happy New Year

For Jewish people around the world, today marks the beginning of the new year.

Year 5771.

Wow, do I feel old.

Growing up, this holiday was a big deal in my house.

We used to spend all day in synagogue praying.

Praying that the next year would be better than the last.

Praying that your family would be safe and healthy.

Praying that you could stay awake during the Rabbi’s sermon.

My dad was really good at the first two.

He loved going to synagogue or as we always referred to it in the Jewish slang, Shul.

We would go to Shul almost every Saturday during the year, but we would never miss the “High Holidays”.

As I’ve stated before, I’m a big believer in religion, any religion.

If it works for you.

I still believe in God and I still believe in faith and I still believe in tradition and I still believe in believing.

But as for spending all day sitting in a synagogue, that’s just not for me.

And it hasn’t been for a while.

I haven’t gone to a Shul in several years and I won’t be going for these holidays.

It’s not a protest or political statement, I’m just not going.

And it sounds like I’m not the only one.

I spoke to several of my Jewish friends yesterday and we exchanged Happy New Year greetings as we always do.

I asked if they would be going to Shul for the services and the group was split.

Some are.   Some are not.

Not exactly a Gallup Poll, but it was still interesting to me.

I was raised to be much more religious than the core of my friends.

In fact, I was raised a hardcore part-time orthodox jew.

I went to a Jewish school, five days a week, learning English, Math and Science for half of the day.

Jewish studies for the other half.

We kept a strictly kosher home, with strictly kosher rules.

All kosher foods.

Different plates for meat meals and milk meals.

And there was no getting around it.

Unless we were out of the house.

Then we did what worked.

In the Jewish religion you can’t eat shellfish.

But my dad always raved about the crab cakes in Maryland.

On the Sabbath, you cannot drive a car.

But we always drove to Shul.

On the Sabbath, you cannot turn on lights or electronics.

But we always watched a game on TV.

In fact, sports was a religion in our house.

I can remember May 24, 1980 like it was yesterday.

That was the day of my Bar Mitzvah, the day I became a man.

I spent many months preparing for that day.

Learning the words, writing the speech, picking out the food.

But sitting here thirty years later, the first thing that comes to mind from that day was coming home from the services and turning on the TV.

At that EXACT moment I saw Bob Nystrom of the New York Islanders skating around the ice after scoring the game-winning goal in the Stanley Cup Finals to defeat my Philadelphia Flyers.

It broke my heart as a Flyers fan.

But little did I know at the time that Nystrom was Jewish, not that it would’ve made me feel better.

I always loved hearing my dad's story about the time he mixed religion and sports.

He was working for the original Los Angeles Angels at the time, in the early 60’s.

The team was in Chicago on a road-trip and going through a terrible losing streak.

So bad, that he found a synagogue in Chicago where he could go to a Saturday service and pray.

At one point, as a visitor, he was called up to the stage to recite a certain prayer.

As part of that prayer, the Rabbi asked if there are any specific people in my dad’s life that he would like the Rabbi to mention.

When this is done, people will usually bring up their mother or father or children or anybody that they feel needs an extra shot.

That’s where Starbucks got the idea.

Well my dad mentioned his close family members, like most people do.

And then asked the Rabbi to say an extra prayer for the Angels.

The Los Angeles Angels.

The Orthodox Rabbi stopped cold and seemed shocked.

He informed my father that he could not do that.

“Why,” my father asked.

“Because I’m a White Sox fan."

Happy New Year, no matter what team you are on.