Just A Lot of Jealousy

By now it's been well documented. The Kings have won the Stanley Cup! They haven't won since they entered the league in 1967! Congrats Wayne Gretzky! Congrats Marcel Dionne, Charlie Simmer, Dave Taylor, Luc Robitaille, Rogie Vachon, and Bob Berry! Congrats long time announcer Bob Miller and all other Kings legends! What a tortured fan base this has been, it's just been kept on the down low! 


The outpour of love for the Kings franchise and fan base has begun. And it's making me sick. This movie is miscast. This script was written for the Blues.


The Blues are now the only team of the NHL's 1967 Expansion 6 that haven't won a Cup. The Flyers won in '74 and '75 with the Broad Street Bullies. The Minnesota North Stars moved to Dallas in 1993 and won their Cup in '99. The California Seals never won, disqualifying them in the Expansion 6 Cup-race. However, they eventually moved to Cleveland and merged with the North Stars, so you could say they got their Cup that way.The Penguins won in '91 and '92. The Kings are now the 2012 champs. The Blues? Still 0-12 in Stanley Cup Final games. Yup, swept by the Canadiens and Bruins three straight years from 1968-1970. 



So what? One of the 6 had to be last. 


The Blues are a team with an actual history. It wasn't shipped in from Edmonton overnight. They have a longtime, diehard fan base. Not one that sprung in a pop-up book, as soon as the Lakers and Clippers pages were turned. The St. Louis media knows how to pronounce players names, what their logo looks like, and what the Stanley Cup is called. The Blues are more deserving. 


Ok, now to be fair, the Kings have plenty of history. The Triple Crown Line contained three of the King's greatest franchise players, and a hall of famer. They have 14 hall of famers overall, and "The Great One" captained their team for seven years. I'm also well aware that they have plenty of die hard fans that probably shed tears after waiting more than 40 years for the Cup. The LA media, they don't have too many excuses.


But none of that's the point. The team from southern California should have been the last to hoist the Cup. Destiny shouldn't have been on their side. They didn't make the playoffs 25 straight years. They didn't get screwed by an owner who sold off half the players before selling off the team. They didn't suffer through the worst NHL record in 05-06. They didn't watch new ownership and management rebuild through the draft. They didn't watch their home-grown talent mature and make the playoffs. They didn't watch that same talent disappoint an entire city after giving false hope. And they didn't watch that team pick itself up, become one of the best in the NHL, and franchise history. They didn't have the feeling that this was the year.


They were on a path to frustration. They looked to be on a path of constant first round exits. They were on a path to firing their GM. They were on a path to selling two inconsistant power forwards. They were on a path to hopeless 8th seed-dom. Not a path of destiny. Not a path to the Cup. 


But I guess that's what's great about hockey. It's unpredictable. Destiny chooses it's own victim. One team gets to hoist the Cup, no matter how long its been, where they're from, or how many diehard fans they have.

One day it'll be hoisted in St. Louis. I guess the longer the wait, the sweeter it'll become. But this year, the playoffs didn't put the Blues on a path to a story book ending. Just a lot of jealously.