Thou doth protest too much.
What, prey tell, could thou be hiding?

GO RON !!

GO LA KINGS !!!!

LET’S “DO IT” AGAIN MAN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You are a true old-time die-hard national (in your case, international) fan of the L.A. Kings. I remember Dallas had a huge following in the early 1970s because radio waves from L.A. AM radio stations would travel all the way to New Orleans at night.

And people these days think that Bettman is responsible for the sun-belt interest in hockey…but the reality of it was that there was a lot more interest in the early 1970s, thanks to the Kings.

And yep, you’ve got a few years on me. I was about 10 when the Jets were shipped down to Phoenix, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t cry when that happened.

Listen mack … I’m not sure if you’re calling me out here or something ? … but if you are, then you’d better be careful ! As you know, I’ve stated all along that a “magical” agreement would be announced here during the week of Nov 5-10 “plus or minus” 3 x days. That gives us a time frame of Nov 2 -13 for a deal to be reached … and today is only November 9th. So I’m not sure what your angle is ?

Warning ! … if you’re looking for trouble pal, then you’ve come to the right person !

You’ve got me by 6 years in terms of being a diehard Kings fan, so they sure don’t come much better than you ! Here in Vancouver as a fourteen year old back in ’73, I used to “barely” pick up King’s home games on a little transistor radio that I had. Sometimes there was nothing to be heard, as it seemed to always depend on weather interference ? Anyway, that was the year I fell in love with them and they’ve ruled my heart ever since !

ps: yeah, there sure wasn’t much to be seen on television back then eh ? … the Kings were on Hockey Night in Canada maybe 2 x per year … and they would occasionally show them on those Sunday telecasts that went for a while on either NBC or KVOS ? … can’t remember …

Since Canada’s dollar has gotten stronger, the revenues got stronger, thus giving the NHL it’s record breaking revenues it enjoys today.

And we got very few road games as well on TV.

That’s dedication.

Just to clarify, I did hop on the bandwagon when I suddenly realized that the Kings had a hockey team in Los Angeles.

I did that in 1967.
Sorry, just couldn’t resist. Bottom line, there are lot of “original 67s” like me in Los Angeles, and there are also a lot of fans from other teams accusing many fans in Los Angeles of “jumping on the bandwagon.” Which is actually ridiculous, because L.A. has a very large contingent of hardcore, long-term fans that have been around many years, living and dying with the Kings (just as GM Dean Lombardi termed us as “Cubbish”).

From what I could tell, there was a huge number of fans “jumping on the bandwagon” across the nation when the Kings dispatched their first round opponent, Vancouver.

In regards to being a STH, I can tell you that it was extremely difficult to upgrade this year (although I was able to do it, at a considerable cost however). The Kings have already announced they have sold out of season ticket availability for 2012-13. It is likely that every game this season will indeed sell out (only 3 of 41 regular season games did not sell out last season, and each one of those were within three hundred seats of doing so).

Second, Sippin didn’t say anything about LA. In any case, don’t forget it wasn’t long ago that LA was in the bottom half of the league in terms of attendance percentage, and the bottom 1/3rd in actual attendance (if you go by tickets sold).

3rd, being a season-ticket holder doesn’t mean much. For all we know, you may have hopped on that wagon with the rest of the folks who suddenly realized LA has an NHL team. I’m honestly thrilled that LA won the Cup (plus the Devils suck), and it’s done wonders in growing their fanbase, but the question is can the goodwill continue even after the lockout? We’ll see. Furthermore, Kane signed with the Jets for 6 years.

Sippin is right; if the NHL wants to grow, or at least sustain it’s current revenue stream, it needs to end the lockout now. It’s not going to grow much more in Canada, and it’s fairly well established in the Union. It faces its biggest losses in the South where it already has a difficult time getting people to come to games. It’s not that us Canucks necessarily want southern teams to fail. The reality is, it’s not part of the culture down there, and it faces tough competition from other sports. We’ll have to just see if the lockout further harms the interest in hockey in the South.

It is entirely possible I am way off base, but I feel 17 hours in a 72 hour time frame is not enough. And both sides have enough “staff” where some can run off and crunch numbers on one part of a proposal while the big boys move on to haggeling over another part.

I don’t get a sense there is much urgency from either side.

Just tired of being forced to watch the joke that is the NBA during the week instead of watching the NHL. Actually more pissed than tired. The NBA sucks.