Go Kings Go... Straight To The Cellar

In a league where a majority of the teams make the playoffs, the Kings haven’t appeared in a playoff game since the 2001 season. Since 1993, the Kings have only won one playoff series, and have now missed the playoffs ten times. (It probably would have been eleven, but the entire 2004 season was cancelled because of a labor dispute).

Kings - It’s time to take your ineffectiveness up a notch. It’s time to realize your full (lack of) potential. Being consistently pretty bad means nothing. Nobody remembers the 1982 Hartford Whalers. If you’re gonna insist on sucking, then suck as if your lives depended on it.

You’ve already got a pretty good jump. With few exceptions, you have been in the first year of a five year rebuilding plan since October 1967. 40 years of futility puts you in some pretty good company. It means you’re bad. It means you’re very bad. We’re not talking expansion team bad… we’re talking Chicago Cubs bad.

But you want to know the difference between the LA Kings and the Chicago Cubs? The Cubs have at least won a World Series. In fact, they’ve won two. Sure, it’s been 100 years since their last championship, but at least they’ve won.

Now that we’re talking about it, how many more losing seasons do the Kings have to have before they are officially “cursed”?

Remember back in 93 when we were one curved stick away from taking a 2-0 lead back home against the Montreal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup Finals? That bad penalty led to a late comeback for Montreal, who went on to win in overtime. That was a legendary loss! The kind of loss that happens to cursed teams.

Kings, just before this season started, you announced that you were raising ticket prices. "Wow", I thought, "that takes balls". Well, it's those kind of balls that are gonna help you finish last, and secure your place in history.

If you’re unsure how to proceed, just keep doing what you’re doing. Watch tapes of yesterday’s abysmal lackluster loss to the Dallas Stars. You looked flat, tired, and indifferent. You took stupid penalties, and you let down goalie Erik Ersberg, who’s been one of the few bright spots the last few painful weeks. You barely managed 14 shots on goal, and at least 4 of those shots would have gone wide if the Dallas goalie would have just let them go.

Did you know that when you pulled the starting goalie and put in Daniel Taylor, you were tying an NHL record for most different goalies used in a season? That’s right. You tied an NHL record. And all you had to do to get in the record books was suck.

Isn’t that more rewarding than finishing in the middle of the pack and missing the playoffs by 6 points?

I was at yesterday’s “game”. I was sitting in the nosebleeds in the next to last row. As I was sitting there, I couldn’t help thinking that as awful as the seats were, I had nothing on the guy sitting behind me. He had the real worst seat in the house, and that’s an achievement he can be proud of.

Kings, I don’t want you to feel like I felt yesterday. Embrace your destiny. Don’t just settle for being one of the worst… Go out there and be the best worst you can be!

photo by Joits via Flickr