Common
Myths About
Why the
Kings Lose...
E X P L O D E D ! !
by the Kourt jEsTeR
editor's note - departing from our usual
editorial standards, this piece is being run even though not completely
finished. As you fans read, you'll see why. This venture clearly has taken
on what must be a never-ending task. We're running what we have already
in the hopes of saving at least a few fans' sanity before it's all too
late. But you, the fans, will see many more not yet included here. Write
us at Investigative Reports, c/o editor@kingshockey.com
and submit your additions. You can be sure they'll be included among the
masses of others.
MYTH NUMBER 1 -The
Kings lose because they play down to the level of their worst opponents,
the teams with the poorest records in the leque.
While superficially this looks true, real understanding requires deeper
probing, kinda' like what you'd expect if you got a backyard visit from
an alien spacecraft. I guess there's a reason why they never land in the
front yard or the side yard, but I digress. Think about what happens to
a team when they score about as often as Kerry Fraser does visiting a
hippie commune. They look at more rubber than a hooker who only works
"lunch." Take Marc Denis, for example. Not the hooker, the goaltender
for the BeeJays. Although that is an odd coincidence, no?
Going into Saturday's game at Staples Center Denis had faced more shots
and made more saves than any other goaltender in the NHL. BobbinJim even
pointed that fact out during the telecast, so it must've been true. Look
at that many shots and still have a pulse, you must be a pretty outstanding
goaltender, don't matter what your team's record is. Did the Kings win?
Of course they didn't. The Kings lose because their goaltender is virtually
unsolvable. Only a Hurculean effort could've overcome the force field
he threw in front of the net. That or get lucky and face him shortly after
he signs a 5-year $25 million contract extension, and figures the pressure's
off, at least for a while. Saturday night the timing just wasn't right
for that kind of lucky break.
These bottom feeding teams usually beat only the best teams in the leque,
and lose against the also-rans. Why? Because whoever plays them, good
team or bad, can only score 1 or 2 goals against them because their goaltenders
have to be so outstanding just to stay alive. These bad teams' skaters
tend to wake up and play hard only when they're facing an opponent worth
beating. Had Columbus beaten anybody this year who wasn't a second round
or better playoff team? I mean, other than the Kings of course.
MYTH NUMBER 2 - The
Kings lose becauses some nights thy just don't play hard and their lack
of effort costs them the game.
Do you know what time it is? No, don't look at your wristwatch. The question
is the rap music question, as in, "have you any idea where you are
in space and time?"
Let's start gently. What month are we in? December, maybe? When was the
last year the Kings ever won a game in December? No, make that when was
the last decade that happened?
Sometimes the arrogance of certain Kings fans is just a little hard to
stomach. Just who do you think you are, you tiny little Kings fan, in
the face of the giant kharmic wheel of the universe? It has been pre-ordained,
predestined, and pre-lubricated like your favourite flavour of edible
underwear, that the KINGS SHALL WIN NO GAME IN DECEMBER! And you expect
the players to put out a lot of energy in a game when the outcome has
already been dictated? Show the rest of the universe some respect, you
myopic little self-centered twits! It;s a good thing our players have
been let in on the deal. Can you imagine how frustrated they'd become
if they actually played with the notion that it was possible to win? Shudder
to think. How would that not crush their fragile souls?
MYTH NUMBER 3 - The
Kings lose because just when they get their star players to return from
the Injured Reserve List, that's when they start coasting and expect the
opposition just to roll over and give them a victory.
Another fine theory still in search of its first fact. Stop and take
a look at one of the most fundamental statistics about the NHL. When is
any team most likely to lose games? Just as soon as a star
player, or even worse, players, return from an injury.Bob
Hartley's oversight of this fundamental truth damn near put the Avs out
of the playoffs in the first round last year. Hartley had'nt used Peter
Forsberg all year and thought he could just jump-start his team by playing
the Surly Swede against us. Took them seven games, and even then it was
just by a whisker that Rob Blake put that charley horse on Jason Allison.
When we lost the two consecutive home games against the Predlys and the
BeeJays, Allison and Deadmarsh came back to playing in the first game,
and then just to ensure the certainty of losing, we put Lappy back in
the ice in the second game.
The synchronicity required for winning gets precluded by the dysharmony
of players re-adjusting to some new face on their line. After all, these
guys are professionals, but really, can we expect that much of
them, when they're really still human after all?
As long as the Kings lose players for a while to injury, and then make
the conscious decision to put them back into the line-up, they can expect
to lose games for at least a month until everybody gets used to playing
with everybody else. 'Bout all you can do to get the occasional win is
to get lucky and play a team who's putting more previously injured players
back into their lineup than we are with ours.
MYTH NUMBER 4 - The
Kings lose because they have never developed the "killer instinct"
that all top-tier clubs show. At the point in the game where they should
be putting the last nail in the other team's coffin, our players start
dicking around.
Hey ,the Kings have plenty of "Killer Instinct." Just ask Kevin
Stevens. While playing with the Kings he knew better than to indulge any
of his baser passions. When he wore # 25 for us did we see Stevens getting
arrested by the Illinois State Police in East St. Louis for letting an
assistant crack whore cool down her coochie by hanging it out the passenger
side window while they rode in a cab and both sucked on a crack pipe?
Of course not, that happened later, after he'd been traded to some other
team.
The "Killer Instinct" just gets used up by having the toughest
travel demands of any team in the leque. I mean, flying on the plane back
and forth across the country and having to worry about how to kill some
bloodthirsty terrorist who may be on the plane even though they don't
have sticks and skates handy? You think it was any wonder than no other
NHL team lost a scout, a trainer, a marketing exec, a radio colour guy,
or even a ticket representative when 911 happened? Just the Kings' organization?
Sure, there could've been someone from some other club on one of those
four airplanes, no one knew in advance it was gonna happen. But you have
to admit, the odds were strongly in favour of someone from the Kings being
on one of those planes, since the NHL gerrymannders the Kings 82-game
season in such a way that our players fly three times the air miles of
even the closest other team.
Hell, even when the team's at Staples, they hear players from other teams
griping about travel fatigue during the pre-game warm ups. From where
comes the vast majority of other teams? From at least 750 miles away,
if not 3,000. Just looking at any opponent from someplace other than Anaheim
or San Jose is enough to give even the stoutest Kings player a case of
"battle fatigue" in the form of a stress reaction to so much
air travel of such long duration that consequently there is ultimately
no time for practices on the road. And by the same token, no chance for
the body to rest once they get back to Southern California. Traveling
from South to North and from West to East cost the rebel soldiers the
Civil War. Just too hard to do over the long haul. That Abraham Lincoln
was a smart country bumpkin, picking a time when the men he had to lick
at least came from a direction where he knew he couldn't lose.
MYTH NUMBER 5- The
Kings lose because they won't replace players who have proven beyond any
shadow of a doubt that they will never produce for team that has a crown
on its sweaters. Case(s) in point - Craig Johnson, Steve Heinze, Ken Belanger,
etc. etc.
Well if that argument were really true I guess we'd never see players
like Robert Lang or Darryl Sydork or even Glenn Murray go on with other
clubs to have 5-point nights, get named to the All-Stars, or score 40
goals in a season.
Hardly. Seems completely amazing that fans in Southern California can't
take a lesson from their own backyards. Literally. El Lay is the home
of the Lebrea Tar Pits, Mother Nature's premier example of the naturally
occurring Chemistry Set. Know of another place in North America where
John D. Rockefeller's oil just congeals and bubbles like a scary mess?
This stuff has been taking out living things since the dinosaurs, whose
bones litter its banks.
Chemistry Is Everything!
Chemistry 101!
Winning Teams Need Chemistry!
Our Kings Have None!
The Kings always seem to have chemistry problems amongst
its players that no other club ever has to face. A player's father battles
a terminal illness. Injuries force frequent shifting of line assignments.
Guys go on the Injured Reserve list. Wives have babies. Players have to
drive crowded freeways to get to work. There's more to do in your off
time during the winter than just ice fishing.
Hell, teams in the East still make their players triple
up in billets 5 times a month just to remind them that that if their buddies
don't watch their backs, the host family's teenagers will steal their
PlayStation games when they're not looking. Hard to develop team chemistry
when the players spend all their time at the volleyball nets in Manhattan
Beach or driving their Dodge Vipers up the 405.
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