(originally posted May, 2012)
Indulge me a moment, if you will, my sports junkiness.
When I turned five years old all I wanted to do was go to a Los Angeles Kings hockey game. I had already fallen in love with the sport on TV, and my Dad was a former season-ticket holder so he would go to games from time to time with friends or my Mom. So my first game came at five on the nose, and it turned me into a fan for life.
Being a Kings fan has hardly been a walk in the park, in the ensuing 30 years. They were pretty uncompetitive for most of my youth, which kept tickets prices and availability reasonable- so we got to go a lot of games. Marcel Dionne was my guy, a small-framed centerman who scored goals with the best of him. #16 was it for me, along with guys like Charlie Simmer, Bernie Nicholls, Jay Wells, Dave Taylor, and along came a scrappy kid named Luc Robitaille who went on to become the greatest scoring left-winger in the history of the game (but I really liked him at first because he lived with Marcel and his family as a 20 year-old rookie)- and he also helped ease the burn when Dionne got traded to the Rangers in ‘86. It was those guys who taught me to love hockey, along with my Dad- who taught me all the ins and outs of the game. And at the end of every year, some team other than the Kings would hoist the Stanley Cup as champions of the NHL and then it was on to next year.
Then in August of 1988 my family and I came back from a cruise to Mexico, and we found out that Wayne Gretzky- the best player in the game, possibly ever- had been traded to the Kings. It changed everything. New uniforms and color-scheme, and Stanley Cup possibilities and expectations came to LA (it also changed that reasonable availability and ticket price). I had stars (well, Cups) in my eyes!! It took five years, but the Kings finally reached the Cup finals for the first time in franchise history after the 1992-93 season, and won game one against hockey’s most decorated franchise, the Montreal Canadiens. And then they proceeded to lose four games in a row, and the series. Another year, another team other than the Kings hoisting Lord Stanley’s hardware. Except this time, it was heartbreaking. But surely there would be another chance in the near future… after all, we have Wayne friggin Gretzky!
Fast forward 19 years, Gretzky long gone from game (he left LA a few years after the loss), Luc retired as well, Dionne of course too (their numbers 99, 20, 16 hang from the rafters, and they all sit in hockey’s hall of fame)- 18 times the Cup has been lifted at the end of the of the playoffs, not once by the Kings. Not once had they even reached the finals again- not even come close… until this year. A scrappy bunch of guys who have played up and down hockey all season, have gotten it together at that right time, and are on the precipice of NHL hockey’s pinnacle (not sure a precipice can actually lead to a pinnacle, but go with me on this one). The Stanley Cup finals start tonight, and my first sports love will be lacing them up against the New Jersey Devils. The Devs have won three Cups in their 37 years of existence, the last in 2003. The Kings are going on 44 here with a one.
This time I want the Cup. I want my guy to be holding the Con Smythe Trophy as the the playoffs’ MVP, whether it be Jonathan Quick, Dustin Brown, Anze Kopitar, Mike Richards or whoever.
Really, I want to skate around the ice holding the Stanley Cup high above my head- and then pass it off to my Dad and watch him skate a lap. And then to Marcel, and Luc, and why not even Gretz (he won five cups with the Oilers, but we’ll let him in to this party too). While that scenario is all but impossible: for the first time in long time, the scenario in which these current bunch of Kings hoist the hardware is well within reach. And I can’t believe it. I’m a five year old kid watching a game, hoping for the best. GO. KINGS. GO.