So I get that killer whales are drawn to the waters near Vancouver. I get that a Canuck is a sometimes derogatory, sometimes endearing term for a Canadian lumberjack. I don’t know what that has to with Orcas. To me this is akin to the Kings having a pigeon as their logo. Or the Washington Redskins adopting a bunny for their jerseys. No matter how you slice it, that team in Vancouver is wrong.
Wrong name. Wrong logo. Wrong ginger twins (although to be fair, there are no ‘right’ ginger twins). Wrong goalie. Wrong psychotic fanbase. Wrong side of the playoff line.
Although in the past, life has proven to be anything but just, buoying the wrong Canucks to the right side of league standings, this year the Canucks are not off the rip roaring start their bafflingly entitled fans demand of them. The Canucks, like the Kings, boast a losing record. Unlike the Kings, however, Roberto Luongo, despite his inflated salary, has been unable to bring their team the overtime loss points that Quick has managed. Interestingly, the Canucks sit two points behind the Kings, but have a better goal differential by a margin of 2. The Kings retain an honor shared currently only by the Tampa Bay Lightning (no, I’m not talking about the boredom award), as the two teams who manage to sit in the top 8 of their respective conferences while maintaining a negative goal differential. Fun, huh?
In the spirit of empathy, I’m going to put on my Canucklehead hat and demand something of my own team, a win tonight. Beating Nashville is great. Snapping a 5 game skid is important. However you are only as good as your next game. The Kings must string together a few wins here. Not just for their own sake, or Terry Murray’s, but for mine, damnit. I’ve had to miss the last two home games. I had to miss the home opener. That means that so far this season I’ve attended 3 games. Dallas, New Jersey and Edmonton. In those 3 games, I’ve seen the Kings score one goal. Win one game. Leave me pleased once. 33% success rate is only considered good in baseball, and any sport where you can only use your feet is stupid. I don’t think I can handle 25%. If I don’t see another win with some good goals during a good game soon, I’m going to scream, and not in the rah-rah way to which I’m accustomed. More in the brooding, seething, primal mind screamy kind of way. The kind that sours my dreams and scares the cat.
So please, Kings, win for fuck’s sake. Doughty, build on getting the goal monkey off your back and try to remember to play defense in the process. Penner, like the team, let’s go ahead and string together two good games. Kopi, keep on truckin’ my man. Bury these confused dildos from the North. Burn their blubber and their firewood.
Oh!
There’s the connection. Lumber and Orcas. The destruction of both by fire keep me warm through the night.
GO KING GO!
A company called Orca Bay used to own the Canucks. That, and that its supposed to look like traditional Pacific Northwestern Indian art is about all there is to the connection.
Yeah I read about the Orca Bay thing. It’s lame. I would be pissed if the Kings take on a logo based on AEG, like that stupid globe or star or something. Better yet, let’s just make the Kings’ logo a stapler!
Guess it’s just the owning company pushing their logo choice on their team, like the original ducks logo.
“let’s just make the Kings’ logo a stapler!”
That made me spit my coffee through my nose.
Thanks a lot jerky!
can it be a red stapler and if someone is not playing well we can say “you are going to have to move to the basement”
No kidding. All these years I assumed it had something to do with their women.
Since I LOVE Orcas and Whales in general.. such amzing mamals.,, glad to hear really no connection.
As for the game.. I am tired of griping.. but our frustrating good and then bad play is sure draining me emotionally..
feel like I am dragging an anchor around .. and it is my heavy
heart in distress yet again for the Kings.. damn
GO KINGS GO!!!
“Interestingly, the Canucks sit two points behind the Kings, but have a better goal differential by a margin of 2.”
… Well, a margin of one – but who’s counting, eh?
“The Kings retain an honor shared currently only by the Tampa Bay Lightning (no, I’m not talking about the boredom award), as the two teams who manage to sit in the top 8 of their respective conferences while maintaining a negative goal differential.”
… Nope. The Kings have scored 34 goals and have allowed 33, they’re on the positive side. The Lightning are even; they’ve scored 45 and allowed 45.
They are +1, we are -1. That’s a difference of 2.
Then again, I’m just going by what NHL.com says, what do they know?
http://www.nhl.com/ice/standings.htm?type=con#&navid=nav-stn-conf
Ah wait, you aren’t counting shootout win goals.
Officially, they still count. My stat acumen doesn’t go beyond an NHL.com search which is fine by me, so long as the stats are applied evenly to all teams.
… I prefer to count actual goals scored and allowed. Personal preference, I know.
And not only that, it makes the Kings look better – so why not.
I understand both ways of looking at it. Because on the one hand, shootout goals are totally different because they aren’t team based in the same way normal goals are. Then again, a penalty shot is like a shootout goal and that counts all the same. Then again, taking an entire shootout as a whole IS kind of a team stat, because it’s one goal for the winner, which is to say one team bested the other, which not counting shootout win goals doesn’t account for. It’s kind of like saying that we have a winning record since we have more regulation wins than regulation losses, when really, we have a losing record.
Looking deeper into NHL.com its kind of hilarious that depending on how you look at their stats they are different.
For example I looked at conference standings, which shows Goals for and against and differential. There is says 34 for and 35 against for a -1 for the Kings.
However if you click on the team stats, it shows what you came up with of 34 for and 33 against. That’s pretty stupid. Pick a way to do it and stick with it. It doesn’t even specify which is using what metric.
After reading the article, I decided to go to the kings insider and see who was matching up against the canucks to see how we would match up. Aside from Hunter and Fraiser being in the line up…
…Has anyone noticed that Terry Murray can not say, “Competitive” ?! He always says, “Compete” as in, “He has a real compete attitude”.
I love it when I decide not to read over what I wrote, and post it anyway. Matching up to see how we would match up, brilliant!! Sign me up for a writing gig!
Thank you Mark! That is one of TeMu’s nuances which bugs the shit out of me. Somebody please tell the old coot that “compete” is a verb, not a noun!
He says it almost every single interview. It drives me insane!
Well. I bought some beers looking forward to tonight’s game.
I drank one and have no appetite for the rest.
3-0 within a little more than half a period.
That doughty penalty was awful. What was he thinking?
That his dumbass ego is more important than hockey. Murray should have benched him for a few shifts after that.
… Well, I gotta say I’m watching this with a droplet of indifference. I see that Richardson got scratched for no good reason, that Lewis got bumped to wing in order to make room for Fraser (something the Kings were unwilling to do with Loktionov). I guess Murray got his wish; all of the dumpster dives are out there. “Veteran-ness” trumps actual talent. Terry Murray is hockey’s version of Joe Torre without the championships.
Oh well. At least Doughty’s in his groove and showing that emotion and intensity. Get yours, Drew.
It’s nice that Doughty was showing some emotion, but that terrible play in front of the net when his team was already killing a major and the subsequent two goals by the ‘nucks, was too much for his two goal quota team to overcome.
… Christ, Kramer. What in the World was that?!?!
That’s the reason your Flyer teams never won shit.
What exactly were you referring to here?