Waving Back at Gretzky - LA Kings Hockey Blog: June 2012

I can't believe the Stanley Cup Parade was less than a week ago. Shit, the LA Kings won the Stanley Cup less than a week ago too! This week has felt so long, but maybe it's because I've been savoring every moment of the Kings' playoff run. My eyes start to well up every time I think about the playoffs and the Stanley Cup and remind myself that the Los Angeles Kings won the Stanley Cup!

I was looking forward to the Stanley Cup parade so much and was absolutely paranoid that I might have to go on a business trip. Thankfully I was in town and was able to skip out on work early to join the fans who lined up hours before the start of the parade.

The first thing I noticed as I walked from my office to Figueroa Street was the sheer number of police officers. It seemed a bit outrageous, but I suppose it's understandable that the City wanted to prevent a riot at all costs.

Here is a group of cops

Oh look, more cops....doing nothing.

How about some horsies? What are they called in Canada? Mounties? Hahahahaha!

Regular cops, bike cops, horsie cops. This photos is only missing the segway cops, but they were there.

If only Olympic was always this empty....

I didn't know what to expect of the parade. I've never attended a Lakers Championship parade and have never seen clips of any other NHL Stanley Cup parade. It was great to see each bus crawl down Figueroa and see the boys stand at the front of the bus. I was most touched whenever I saw a player taking photos of the crowd. I never thought about what it would be like on their side. I guess if I was in their shoes, I would have been shit-housed and on the verge of ripping off my jersey and throwing it into the crowd. But for the most part, the Kings were pretty tame....or at least they looked tame.

Trevor Lewis is obviously checking me out. (Hi, Trevor!)

Bob Miller sighting!

Alec Martinez with the perfect pageant wave.

Who knew Luc Robitaille would be the most enthusiastic person on Team Bus 6?

Team Bus 6!

Mike Richards got "thumbs-up" lessons from Bill Clinton.

Matt Greene was the rowdiest player as he held up the Cup for everyone to see.

Who the heck is the guy with the beard?

As this bus rolled by, Kyle Clifford kept pointing at someone. I'm assuming he was pointing out his next victim because that guy is a beast and feeds off human blood.

"I'm coming after you. Yeah, you!"

If KFC had looked to this left, then he would have seen this sign:

I am shocked. SHOCKED! that the only marriage proposal sign I saw at the parade was for Kyle Clifford. I mean, seriously, really? Clifford? I'd be scared to be left alone in the same room with him, let alone want to marry him. Dude seems crazy!

After the parade we milled around LA Live before the rally inside Staples Center started. I saw these guys and liked their signs. I think I saw some other people with them. Not sure who made them, but I think they're pretty cool, especially the side with all the names.

Thankfully, my hermano and I got tickets to the rally. Unfortunately, we were facing the backs of everyone and I don't have a telephoto lens, so all the close-ups are photos of the jumbotron. Pretty ghetto, but whatever. It's the experience that matters and believe me, it was fucking awesome!!

It was funny watching the players walk to their seats. It's just odd seeing the players in their street clothes and being reminded that most of them are in their early 20s! They're just kids! My hermana-in-law couldn't believe how young Jonathan Quick looks and commented that he must be having a great week seeing that he won the Stanley Cup and graduated from high school in the same week.

The players' speeches were pretty good. Dustin Penner started them off with a humorous, borderline racist speech. I don't know half the shit he said because he was trying to speech Spanish (and get approval from Alec Martinez). Drew Doughty was Drew Doughty. Not quite sure why he gave a speech. Matt Greene made fun of Drew Doughty's inability to speak eloquently for more than 5 seconds. Anze Kopitar got the fans riled up when he mentioned wanting to win the Cup AGAIN! Quick killed it by dropping an unexpected f-bomb...and then a couple more. I'm getting the sense he's one of those guys who curses every fifth word. And Dustin Brown showed how much he has matured over the years as an LA King and delivered a tremendous speech that really made me proud to have him as a captain. It's just inconceivable right now to think his name was even in the trade rumor mill this season.

I made fun of Darryl Sutter a lot during the season. There is just something so goofy about this guy. But, you know what? He led this team to a Stanley Cup, so he can wear whatever he wants, smile however he wants, talk however he wants, make super awkward fist pumps however often he wants because he'll always go down as the Coach of the Los Angeles Kings Stanley Cup Championship team!

Oh Darryl....what are you....oh forget it. You're kind of awesome.

and,

To Dean Lombardi,

You are my hero.

Thank you :)

(oh sweet Hockey Jesus, I just started crying again....)

An emotional blubbering blog post about the Los Angeles Kings winning the Stanley Cup will come at a later date. First up, we need to discuss the jersey fouls witnessed at the LA Kings Stanley Cup parade.

I met up with my hermano and his friends at around 6th and Figueroa a couple hours before the parade started. A bunch of Kings fans were already lined up and as we walked down a couple blocks I started noticing jersey foul after jersey foul. Since there wasn't much else to photograph, besides bored-looking LAPD officers, I decided to photograph as many jersey fouls as possible as we made our trek down Fig to LA Live.

This first photo isn't exactly a jersey foul, but the first non-Kings jersey I spotted. Dude, seriously? A Blackhawks jersey? To a Kings Stanley Cup parade? Loser.

Again, this next one is not quite a jersey foul, but it did stop me in tracks.

And then I felt a bit weird that I was taking a photo of a chick's ass. I just don't get this one. Why would you get "King's Bitch" across the bottom of a sweatshirt? The apostrophe also bothers me (see below for another example) because I think it should be "Kings' Bitch". Right? It's the "Los Angeles Kings", not the "Los Angeles King".

Ok, so maybe I shouldn't have labeled this post "Jersey Fouls", but I had to stop and take a photo of this "vintage" jacket.

I've never seen this design....and I hope I never do again because it's so freaking hideous! Hahaha, it has buildings (presumably Downtown LA even though the Kings of that era played a lot closer to the beach) and it looks like there are lightning bolts or "Z"s....not quite sure what's going on. I wonder how much he paid for the jacket. Man, I should have asked him where he got it.

Ok folks, our first real jersey foul and there are two in one photo!! I was really excited to take this photo:

I think the one on the left said "C MEYER"....personal name, unacceptable. The one on the right: "THE BUN". I was stumped when I first saw it and it still doesn't make any sense to me. Please leave a comment if you know what or who that's in reference to.

With this next photo, I assume the owner is referring to Kyle Clifford because he is kind of a beast, but I'm not 100% sure since I didn't have the courage to ask her since I was worried she would turn into an animal:

"ANIMAL"? Really? Before Kyle Clifford, Michael Cammalleri wore #13 and I most definitely would not describe him as an animal.

Here's another two-fer, but one is a jersey foul and the other is a vintage jersey (although I admit I had to look it up).

"BIG JON" with the double zero number....*vomit*. At first I thought "JOYAL" might be a jersey foul (personal name infraction), but I looked it up and discovered Eddie Joyal was a member of the Los Angeles Kings between 1967 and 1972, so shame on me for not knowing my LA Kings history before I was born. But seriously, that's a pretty rare jersey to be seen in LA.

I don't know what's going on here. I assume it's a surname....or his girlfriend's name. Pretty lame without a doubt though.

I saw this "King's Cup" t-shirt a couple times and I'm convinced it's an apostrophe fail. Sure, you could say it's "Dwight King's Cup", but it's not the "King's Cup", it's the "Kings' Cup", as in the "Los Angeles Kings' Cup". I don't think this is an official NHL licensed merchandise: