Opening Night - My First Date with The Kings

The week leading up to the Kings first regular season game was kind of like the anticipation of a first date. The Vegas game was like meeting in bar, seeing someone interesting across the room while you still have the protection of your friends. You make eye contact, and you start some small talk and decide you like each other. They give you their A-game - in this case winning against the Avalanche - and you decide you want to know more. This could really BE something, right? So you accept the date and spend the week thinking through every detail. You plan what to wear, replay conversations over in your head numerous times so you remember to say just the right thing, and even imagine the ending.

With every first date, you have two possible outcomes.

1. It lives up to your every expectation, and then some. Maybe you even fall in love and live happily ever after at some point in the distant future.
2. The night is a complete failure, so awkward and painful you can't wait for it to be over.
   

My date with the Kings tonight? Unfortunately #2.

The evening started out with so much promise. Good roster moves during the off-season. Solid performance from everyone in training camp. Capping off the pre-season with the Vegas win. The stars were aligned...this year would be different.

When I arrived at Staples Center, there were other good omens. Drew's smiling face on an ad for the Kings Care sponsored Blood Mobile supporting Children's Hospital of Los Angeles.



And Jen, Bri and I got a spot along the ropes for the "Purple Carpet" player entries.





Once 4:30 hit and the players started arriving, the wheels starting coming off the bus. Here are just a few of the evening's lowlights...

• Drew comes walking down the purple carpet, and I'm following every move with the camera. Only after he's safely in the building do I realize I forgot to hit the record button. My first Drew-cam fail of the season! And he looked so handsome!!!
• The girls and I get in line to enter the building, and my ticket won't scan. I have to walk all the way around to the ticket office on the other side of the building to have them stamp my ticket and confirm it's valid. Then I have to wait in another security line to get into the game. GRRRRR....
• The pre-game player intros start, followed by the national anthem. Or not? Lisa Loeb sang "God Bless America," but NO ONE SANG THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER! I have never attending a sporting event in the USA where this has happened.
• My boys look like the Keystone Cops playing against the Phoenix Coyotes, who are among the very worst teams in the league, currently are in bankruptcy protection with no owner, and just got a new coach a week ago since Wayne Gretzky decided he wanted out of his role as coach/part team owner. Matt Greene accidentally puts one in his own net. Drew makes a couple of bad passes that end up as goals. Alexander Frolov goes offsides on the best chance we have at an odd-man rush.
  
• Our Captain Dustin Brown is so frustrated he drops an F-bomb during a mid-game interview with Patrick O'Neal of Fox Sports.
• We end the nightmare with a 6-3 loss, and the boys get booed off the ice.

There were some bright spots. Drew got his first assist and his first goal of the regular season. My favorite usher Luis is back in our section. I had great seatmates, although they had just bought single game seats, so I'll probably be sitting next to someone else at the next weekend game. And there were no more Drew-cam screw-ups, so I got video of Drew's goal and assist for the fan club.

So you're probably thinking there won't be another date after this debacle. Think again. I'm an optimistic and forgiving type, and I'm choosing to rack this whole experience up to a bad case of first date jitters. The boys and I will get back together on Tuesday and give it another try.

Maybe a couple of drinks will make things go a little more smoothly....