Los Angeles Kings Gameday: Banned

Back in 2006 was the last Ducks game I ever went to where they weren't playing the Kings (outside of one). My buddy Jeff had gotten free tickets as part of some punishment and figured I should join in with his misery. As it turned out, Jeff had been named Junior Duck or some shit of the week on his team and had the perk of riding on the Zamboni between periods. You know, the really awkward looking people that have to wave and smile all while being treated like a "special" kid and forced to wear a helmet. Worse yet, everyone else there is trying to guess if the person on the Zamboni actually is retarded or not. The Ducks were playing the Coyotes and the game flat out sucked. It was pretty close to a blowout, and choosing between Anaheim and Arizona is like choosing between Steve Miller and Rush.

Since Jeff actually had gotten a slew of free tickets his dad, mom, and grandparents were all there also. A very nice public relations gal escorted Jeff, his dad, and myself down to ice level. Jeff was up for the 2nd intermission ice cleaning and the score was something ridiculous like 6-1 already. The PR woman was really concerned about Jeff who had been sweating profusely since she met with us by the elevator. His stupid Ducks jersey was soaked through visibly in the pits, which drew the attention of basically everybody we had passed. This was mostly due to the fact that he was wearing 2 hockey jerseys.

"Are you alright? Do you need some water or anything?"

"Yeah," replied Jeff. "It's just pretty warm outside."

While this was essentially true, it also made no god damn sense seeing how we had been indoors for the past 2 hours and were next to the ice surface.

"You won't do it," said Jeff's dad.

Jeff didn't say anything and put the super special safety helmet on, then hopped up on the Zamboni. He was on the Zamboni for close to 30 seconds when Jeff committed his worst offense and took off the helmet. Second, was when he removed the Ducks jersey and started showing off his under-jersey, which happened to be a Kings jersey. To top it off, and in a real nod to safety practice, Jeff put his helmet back on. It took about one pass on the Zamboni before the crowd realized Jeff was wearing a Kings jersey. One beer thrown at him had everyone paying attention. Boos rained down, along with a couple more drinks and bits of trash, all while Jeff sat and waved.

His dad was laughing quite a bit, and it seemed to bother the PR chumpette.

"You knew about this!" she shouted at him, pointing and sweating as bad as Jeff had been.

"Who? Me? Nah," Jeff's dad answered incredulously. "It was this guy's idea," as he pointed his thumb at me. Jeff's dad could be kind of an asshole.

I was actually grabbed by a security guy and dragged down the hall. They proceeded to watch me like I was caught pouring anthrax into the air vents at the Ponda. When Jeff and the confused Zamboni driver were done dodging overpriced concessions out on the ice Jeff got dragged over next to me by some jerkoff wearing one of the security sport coats. He starred at us like we ran his dog over with a John Deere lawnmower.

"You guys are out of here."

"It wasn't that bad, I just was wearing a Kings jersey," Jeff retorted.

The security douche swung his arms back towards the ice. "Look at this mess. We are going to have to clean all that." He said this like he was actually going to clean it.

"Well, I mean, we didn't put the trash out there," I piped in.

The security guy must have taken his job really seriously, because he looked ready to bash my head in with his little walkie-talkie. Hopefully this incident got him fired, had him turn to a meth addiction, and then he died behind a Denny's. The PR lady sounded like she was crying. It was probably because Jeff's dad told her she sucked at her job. 5 minutes later I was outside of the Ponda with Jeff. According to some other suit wearing shitbag we were banned. Jeff's dad I think was able to stay, but Jeff's mom talked him out of staying for the rest of the game. They were our ride by the way.

I never had any issues getting back into the Ponda a year later, so those threats were clearly not backed up, further proof the Ducks organization is a spineless sack of donkey tampons. Jeff had some more problems though, but it wasn't with the Ponda. The Ducks had told his coach about the incident and he was banned from playing until he wrote an apology to the Ducks. Since Jeff was moving to Oregon for college, I don't know if he actually wrote that. Ironically, Jeff now lives in Arizona after moving out from Orange County.