Kings Gameday: How Quaint

For the first time in the two decades of existence that the Kings and Ducks have shared, they are finally meeting in a playoff series. Except, who gives a shit? Ducks fans, maybe. For the rest of us this is just some other series. The Kings may as well be playing Calgary or Nashville at this point. "B-b-b-but this is important! It's the Freeway Faceoff".

Shut the fuck up.

Okay, listen, Ducks...It's great you made it to the second round. And that you are eager to make history with Los Angeles for the first southern California series. But the Kings are very, very busy with some other, much more fun and important history. The crumbling of San Jose. It was like the opening scene in Batman (the Michael Keaton one) where the thugs shoot Batman and leave him for dead. Except of course Batman isn't then proceeds to terrify and thrash them. The Kings just wanted to make a point, too.

And sure, you can say the Kings won that series. Because they did. But the San Jose Sharks still lost that series above all else. Losing four games in a row by a margin of at least three goals in each one of those. The talk of Tomas Cursl was buried each time Dustin Brown put in an empty net goal. The advanced stats in the games the Kings won showed that the possession in only game five was a laugher. Clearly, God just hates you, San Jose.

Todd McLellan's decision to completely fuck with his goalie's confidence going into game seven by benching him. Using Martin Havlat one game. One. Mike Brown getting the call those six other times. McLellan's post-game interviews may as well just had been him spazzing and speaking in tongues.

Then came the Job treatment. Joe Thornton simply disappearing in the second half of the series. No points past game three. Patrick Marleau? Not much better. Only two assists in game four and then nothing. Joe Pavelski? The center that gave the Sharks their incredible depth? A goal in game four and then had to go back to his home planet (though he apparently died on his way back). Marc-Edouard Vlasic was a non-factor by the end of things. I don't think I even heard his name once.

But most of all this is on you, the fans. The Sharks had two home games to close things out. The Sharks were booed soundly in game five. Game seven wasn't much better when it rolled around where you could have heard a rat fart before the game started. Game six meanwhile at the STAPLES Center was like living above a bowling alley and below another bowling alley. The fans' faith evaporated and they abandoned their team. Now you can ask your friend from Palo Alto if they are a Sharks supporter and when they remove their Sharks hat and tell you, "no, of course not", you can hear a rooster crow in the distance.

Sorry guys.

I guess at this point the series with San Jose has left me spent. Oh great, Anaheim. Whee. It's like dating a relatively hot girl, having unbelievable sex, dumping them gloriously, and then the girl with lice and missing teeth asks if you are doing anything tonight. They're all excited, at least. They just wrapped up a crazy relationship with a young southern hick, after all.

Prediction: Kings come out still drunk from Wednesday night.