One week ago today, the
Los Angeles Kings, the hockey team I have cheered for and suffered over since circa 1989, won the second Western Conference Championship in franchise history, earning itself a trip to the holy grail of all sports championships, the Stanley Cup Finals, which start tomorrow.
When Dustin "
Pancakes" Penner scored with a little over two minutes remaining in the first overtime to clinch the Game 5 win over the Phoenix Coyotes, I screamed in the middle of my living room, where I'd been pacing for the previous 17+ minutes of sudden death overtime. Then I updated my Twitter and Facebook statuses. Then I kind of just stared at the TV in stunned silence listening to the commentators... until I started pleading with Dustin Brown -- through the TV -- to not touch the Clarence Campbell Bowl when he accepted the Western Conference Championship trophy on behalf of the Kings.
He didn't... thank god. To do so, could have been catastrophic in the superstitious world of sports. I'm pretty sure the Kings of 1993 -- the only other Kings team to ever reach the Finals -- touched that damn bowl when they won it in Toronto after an amazingly awesome Game 7 victory over the evil Maple Leafs, and we all know what happened after that.
It's that dreaded superstitious fear of all the cards crumbling down at the worst possible moment that brings me to the point of today's musing... This is all a little too good to be true for a team and its fans who, a year ago, were elated to just make the playoffs... and who this year almost didn't. Let's review a few of the amazingly awesome things they've done since April 11:
- The Kings are 12-2 in the 2012 Playoffs so far.
- The Kings are the first No. 8 seed in NHL history to eliminate a No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 seeds.
- Round 2 vs. the St. Louis Blues was the first time the Kings have ever swept a playoff series.
- The Kings have won 10 straight road playoff games – an NHL record spanning more than one year
- The Kings are the first NHL team to win eight straight road games in a playoff year.
- The Kings are the second No. 8 seed to advance to the Stanley Cup Final (EDM -- 2006). Will be the first to try and win the whole thing.
(Factoids courtesy of the amazingly awesome and always entertaining @LAKings Twitter feed)
So as someone who has spent 23 years always eventually being disappointed by the Kings, you can't really blame me for knocking on wood -- or any product made from wood (a guy I work with knocked on a paper sugar packet for me at lunch the other day ;) -- anytime the Kings do anything good. Or anytime anyone says anything good about them. Or anytime anyone thinks farther than one game ahead of now. I'm really nervous about this.
The good thing about
not making the playoffs is you have weeks, sometimes even months to prepare for the end of your season. In the playoffs, things can be going great and then with one goal (or
one illegally curved stick) it can all crumble. And the farther into the playoffs you get, the more invested you are, both emotionally and financially if, like me, you are a season ticket holder now paying as much for one ticket as you paid for two during the regular season. And therefore it hurts a hell of a lot more when it doesn't go the way you want it to.
I still remember sitting in my parents living room crying in front of the TV on June 9, 1993 as the Montreal Canadiens scored four goals to end the Kings season and win the Cup. (And I still hate Canadiens goaltender Patrick Roy and his damn cocky winking eye more than any other athlete and eyeball in history.)
If you're thinking right about now that I'm a freak, I would a) tend to agree with you and b) like to point out that I'm not the only person who feels this way. It's kind of a given that any
true Kings fan be a glass-half-empty type -- it's an emotional self-preservation thing -- as this great
LA Times article on Saturday explained so well.
All that said, I am willing to admit that I'm nauseously optimistic about our chances against the New Jersey Devils. Their goalie Martin Brodeur, while good, is old (40!). They've played more games than the Kings during the playoffs so hopefully they'll be tired and beaten up. And while they have some great scorers on the team (one of whom the Kings tried in vain to sign last summer -- Ilya Kovalchuk), the Kings are on a roll and have gelled as a true team at the exact right time.
Anze Kopitar and Dustin Brown are the Kings' leaders and leading scorers and they will be the focus of the Devils' defense. But Dwight King -- a rookie who had just come up from the minor leagues when I spent a small fortune on a Staples Center suite for my birthday to watch the Kings lose to Calgary 0-1 a mere three and a half months ago -- has five goals in the playoffs. Jeff Carter scored a hat trick in Game 2 vs. Phoenix. Drew Doughty is on fire the last few games, defensively and offensively, finally earning his $7m paycheck. Mike Richards, Penner, Justin Williams, Jarrett Stoll... there are four lines of guys who can score goals and have finally learned to forecheck and carry the puck. And the Kings are solid on defense, having strong, smart veterans paired with brave, quick newbies on each change up... all six of whom have a plus rating.
And then there is the guy who stops goals... Jonathan Quick is the sole reason the Kings made the playoffs this year. And if he stays on his game, then I firmly believe we can win the most treasured of all sports trophies,
Lord Stanley's Cup. (And Quick will win the Conn Smythe Trophy for MVP of the playoffs, followed by the first Vezina Trophy [Best Goaltender in the NHL] awarded to a King.) He is awesome. Please dear god let him stay that way for four more wins!
Yep, that's the catch. There's still so much that could happen in the next four to seven games. Everyone is congratulating me and saying I must be so excited about this. I
want to be. But as I said above, the best I can muster is nauseously optimistic.
Until the Kings win four more games, there will be no celebrating. Just a continual set of deep breaths and a lot of knocking on wood ... or on sugar packets... whichever I can get to faster ;)
GO KINGS GO! (Knock on wood. No whammies. No jinxes.)
