The Los Angeles Kings are in a pretty good position right now. They are just 2 home victories away from winning the Stanley Cup in impressive fashion. Their overall playoff record is now 14-2 and they are undefeated on enemy ice (10-0) as well as games that go into overtime (4-0). They're also the second 8 seed to ever make it to the Stanley Cup Finals and could be the first 8 seed to actually win it all.
And yet the people in Los Angeles are not quite watching.
As a lifelong hockey fan, I'm fully aware of what to expect out of certain hockey communities. I'm not surprised when Phoenix has about half a dozen fans in attendance all throughout the regular season nor am I surprised when Montreal sells out game #82 even though they're in last place.
And for a city like Los Angeles, it's kind of hard for fans to hop on the band wagon.
At the beginning of May, LA fans had to keep up with Lakers playoff basketball, Clippers playoff basketball, Dodgers playing good baseball, and the Angels...uh well ya. So it was no shock to me when it came out that the Kings were not quite getting such a strong following.
Plus, it didn't help that the local LA media was butchering hockey coverage at every possible moment.
Let's start with the more-famous logo swap.
Local media in LA accidentally replaced the Los Angeles hockey Kings logo to the one that A) says "Sacramento" on it and B) has a basketball on it.
Ultimately, the stationreceived many phone calls about the awful mess-up realized their mistake and apologized to all of their viewers who it bothered, in a pretty awkward video:
Alright so one mistake I guess I could let slip. But then a week or two later there was a similar goof up...
If you look closely, you don't see the LA Kings mascot, Bailey. Instead, you see Sacramento Kings mascot, Slamson.
Mascot's can potentially play a big role for teams in a year. They're pretty much the identity of the team off the ice and are known to be friendly and admirable. So when a news team just takes any lion-type mascot and uses them in a montage to talk about a different team, it comes off as lazy and unprofessional. Oh, and don't think Baily didn't realize...
Okay. So they mess up the team's logo AND the teams mascot. At this point, it's pretty clear that either the media is trying to talk about the Kings but don't know the first thing about hockey, or they don't really care at all and are just trying to meet the demands of the few hockey fans in the area.
Well either way, this next clip won't help answer this question:
Things to love about this clip:
1) "Doesn't matter who's playing at Staples (center), there are always celebrities around"-I'm sorry, but doesn't that sound like a backhanded insult to the Kings?..
2) "Anje Kopidor"...seriously?...I think Siri could have pronounced ANZE KOPITAR's name better
3) "The Kings have the ball" followed by a good 20 seconds pretending to pretend that they know what they're talking about with hockey by messing up on purpose
4) "Brad Doty".....Not only does she completely slaughter Doughty's last name, she somehow confuses "Drew" with "Brad"...Yikes
5) My favourite part, the pre-lockout 2005 logo of the NHL as they're cutting away. Think of it what you will, but that was the clincher for me.
So the LA media has had quite a bit of trouble covering these hot Kings through their playoff run. I suppose it looks like they're trying show the public what's going on but these awful mistakes pinpoint to the classic question:
Is the coverage of the Kings in Los Angeles horrible because there's little interest or is there little interest for the Kings in Los Angeles because of bad coverage?
(and to those saying that the interest in LA isn't weak, explain to me how game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals lost in the ratings in Los Angeles to the Heat-Celtics game 6.1%-4.2%..)
In any event, I guess this is just something we have to expect from cities like LA. The true Kings fans out there love hockey and are certainly enjoying their team's historic run for the Cup. But for everyone else, it seems that life just goes on.
But as expected, now with the Kings so close to hoisting the Cup they could almost taste it, fans ARE starting to take notice and publicity stunts like this certainly help the cause.
Game 3 is shifting back to LA on Monday with the Kings up 2-0.
UPDATE: Would you be surprised if I told you that there was yet ANOTHER news gaffe from the LA media? Well there was *facepalm*
For those keeping track at home, the Kings have indeed made it to the Cup Finals before...
UPDATE: This is the sixth incident I'm commenting on. It's just getting embarrassing at this point that the local media is having such trouble covering a team they're supposed to know, at least a little bit. Here's the new fail:
You gotta know the team that you're covering...
UPDATE: Don't quite know how I forgot to put this up sooner but in game 3 they had Wayne Gretzky drop the opening faceoff. So in a wonderful act of fake-knowing-all-about-Wayne-Gretzky by the fans, they cheered their hearts out. As every Kings fan knows, Wayne came to the Kings in August of 1988 (just to piss off still-disgruntled Oiler fans, I'll be more precise -- August 9, 1988), took them to the Cup Finals in '93 and left LA in '96. Basic information that any Kings fan (or Kings PA announcer, for that matter) should know, right?
Wrong:
"his arrival in Los Angeles in 1998 changed the face of hockey and the NHL forever."
Yup. So according to him, Wayne Gretzky was SO GOOD, he took the Kings to the Finals 5 YEARS BEFORE JOINING THE TEAM!!!!
And yet the people in Los Angeles are not quite watching.
As a lifelong hockey fan, I'm fully aware of what to expect out of certain hockey communities. I'm not surprised when Phoenix has about half a dozen fans in attendance all throughout the regular season nor am I surprised when Montreal sells out game #82 even though they're in last place.
And for a city like Los Angeles, it's kind of hard for fans to hop on the band wagon.
At the beginning of May, LA fans had to keep up with Lakers playoff basketball, Clippers playoff basketball, Dodgers playing good baseball, and the Angels...uh well ya. So it was no shock to me when it came out that the Kings were not quite getting such a strong following.
Plus, it didn't help that the local LA media was butchering hockey coverage at every possible moment.
Let's start with the more-famous logo swap.
Ultimately, the station
Mascot's can potentially play a big role for teams in a year. They're pretty much the identity of the team off the ice and are known to be friendly and admirable. So when a news team just takes any lion-type mascot and uses them in a montage to talk about a different team, it comes off as lazy and unprofessional. Oh, and don't think Baily didn't realize...
Well either way, this next clip won't help answer this question:
1) "Doesn't matter who's playing at Staples (center), there are always celebrities around"-I'm sorry, but doesn't that sound like a backhanded insult to the Kings?..
2) "Anje Kopidor"...seriously?...I think Siri could have pronounced ANZE KOPITAR's name better
3) "The Kings have the ball" followed by a good 20 seconds pretending to pretend that they know what they're talking about with hockey by messing up on purpose
4) "Brad Doty".....Not only does she completely slaughter Doughty's last name, she somehow confuses "Drew" with "Brad"...Yikes
5) My favourite part, the pre-lockout 2005 logo of the NHL as they're cutting away. Think of it what you will, but that was the clincher for me.
So the LA media has had quite a bit of trouble covering these hot Kings through their playoff run. I suppose it looks like they're trying show the public what's going on but these awful mistakes pinpoint to the classic question:
Is the coverage of the Kings in Los Angeles horrible because there's little interest or is there little interest for the Kings in Los Angeles because of bad coverage?
(and to those saying that the interest in LA isn't weak, explain to me how game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals lost in the ratings in Los Angeles to the Heat-Celtics game 6.1%-4.2%..)
In any event, I guess this is just something we have to expect from cities like LA. The true Kings fans out there love hockey and are certainly enjoying their team's historic run for the Cup. But for everyone else, it seems that life just goes on.
But as expected, now with the Kings so close to hoisting the Cup they could almost taste it, fans ARE starting to take notice and publicity stunts like this certainly help the cause.
Game 3 is shifting back to LA on Monday with the Kings up 2-0.
UPDATE: Somehow, with just one win away from the Stanley Cup, the LA fans can't even get the name of the eventual Conn Smythe Trophy winner's (refer to most recent poll question on the top right of the page) name right. Instead of "Jonathan Quick" they mentioned the Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and political pamphleteer (thank you, Wikipedia) "Jonathan Swift." It's not like they rhyme or sound similar. They're synonyms. They confused the two last names because of definitions. That's just lame.
UPDATE: Would you be surprised if I told you that there was yet ANOTHER news gaffe from the LA media? Well there was *facepalm*
UPDATE: This is the sixth incident I'm commenting on. It's just getting embarrassing at this point that the local media is having such trouble covering a team they're supposed to know, at least a little bit. Here's the new fail:
UPDATE: Don't quite know how I forgot to put this up sooner but in game 3 they had Wayne Gretzky drop the opening faceoff. So in a wonderful act of fake-knowing-all-about-Wayne-Gretzky by the fans, they cheered their hearts out. As every Kings fan knows, Wayne came to the Kings in August of 1988 (just to piss off still-disgruntled Oiler fans, I'll be more precise -- August 9, 1988), took them to the Cup Finals in '93 and left LA in '96. Basic information that any Kings fan (or Kings PA announcer, for that matter) should know, right?
Wrong:
Yup. So according to him, Wayne Gretzky was SO GOOD, he took the Kings to the Finals 5 YEARS BEFORE JOINING THE TEAM!!!!
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