The best part of this Stanley Cup Final is that I get to trash-talk one of the most esteemed members of The Royal Half family, Jersey Brian. Brian is responsible for some of the best posts here at TRH... including his co-writing credit on the smash hit, Rick Nash's "These Teams are on My List." But Brian has a bit of a dilemma... as a born and raised New Jerseyian who has become a pretty passionate LA Kings fan the past few years... who is he rooting for? Take it away, Brian.

I was born and raised in New Jersey, where we pride ourselves on being haters.  We take a spoonful of vitriol with breakfast every morning.  Flipping the bird is more convenient than waving because there’s far less fingers involved.  The first things I was taught to say were my exit number, the lyrics to “Born To Run,” “Fuck Boston,” and “Rangers Suck!”

These playoffs have been so fun this year because between the Semis against the Flyers and the Eastern Finals against the Rangers, it’s been a feast of hate for Devils fans.

What pisses me off about the Flyers is, well, they’re the Flyers. To say that I’m still giddy when I think about Scott Stevens barreling over Eric Lindros in ’00 would be an understatement.  (That play may be 12-years-old, but I think Shanahan’s reviewing it now.)  In the Semis, I was ready and prepared for an all-out, seven game battle like old days.  But the series was over before I could finish my taunting “Bryzgalov” chant.

The rivalry between the Devils and Rangers consumes tri-state area fans in the winter and spring months (and Islander fans are consumed with telling Charles Wang to go fuck himself).  It’s easy to get your Irish up when the Blueshirts invade the Garden State because the Devils, despite far greater success in the last 17 years, are still treated like a second-class citizen.

When the Devils beat down those motherfuckers from across the river in game six, I felt a high that you can only get when you see the big hulk of a bully get beat down on the schoolyard.  We wanted blue bloodshed and we got it.

But that brings me to the Cup.  And I’m feeling like my hate tank is on empty.  Where do I go to find the hate that we were able to conjure up so easily against the Flyers and Rangers?

Mike Richards and Jeff Carter are easy targets for me because of their association with the Flyers.  But the fact that both got booted from that asshole of a franchise means they were doing something good (and I’m guessing they were doing it/her hard, too).

Kings fans boo Kovalchuk for spurning them last year, but Devils fans booed him last year when he was struggling.  Let’s face it, if the shoe was on the other foot and Kovalchuk left NJ for LA, the reaction would be exactly the same.

Cuba Gooding, Jr. used to be the franchise’s go-to celebrity at the games, and he’s pretty much a douche, but I think someone took away his SAG card and his season tickets, so kudos to Hollywood for that one.

Were there historic games between the two over the years?  (looking through the records…) None.

Is there a once-great, now elderly veteran that I like to root against who’s looking for one last shot at the Cup, so he forced a trade to a team he has no real ties to?  Nope, Ray Borque’s not here.

What’s the rallying cry?  Win this one for Ponikarovsky?  Hell, that’s not landing for anyone - not even Poni himself.

My real lack of hatred is coming from a sense of personal conflict.  Because I’ve lived in LA for 14 years and due to the time difference, have spent far more time watching and following the Kings than the Devils.  I may bleed red and black and white (and green on retro days), but I’ve got a soft spot for the Kings.

What’s happening to me?  If 1995 Jersey Brian was reading this, he’d build a time machine, travel to May 30, 2012, come to my house and kick my ass.  (Also, he’d be amazed at how easy it is to get porn on the internet now.)

What’s a conflicted guy to do?  Simple.  I’m not going to watch this series.  I’m pulling out my 1995, 2000 and 2003 Stanley Cup game VHS tapes and watching those games instead of this series.

Oh and one final thing: Rangers Suck!

You can hear more about Jersey Brian's internal struggle over who to root for in this series over at All The Kings Men Podcast. Or you can just pump your fist as you listen below.

STANLEY CUP FINAL GAME #1

LA KINGS
40-27-15
95 pts, 8th in Western Conference, 13th in NHL
vs
NEW JERSEY DEVILS
48-28-6
102 pts, 6th in Eastern Conference, 9th in NHL

Devils Won Season Series 2-0

5:00pm, Prudential Center
Newark, New Jersey
NBC

BEST PLAYER TO WEAR BOTH COLORS THAT PLAYED
IN THE 1993 STANLEY CUP FINAL FOR THE KINGS:

BEST OPPOSITION BLOG:
Down Goes Avery
Running with the Devils
In Lou We Trust

HAVE THE LA KINGS WON THE STANLEY CUP?
NO!

Sure people in Los Angeles are quick to criticize the state of New Jersey for being the home of some of the most obnoxious reality show characters out there... but I'd just like to remind everyone that the production companies that produce these reality shows are based right here in Hollywood.

Seriously, could there be any worse reality show besides this one?

Ok... I stand corrected.

Well... I guess it could be worse.

Good thing that Alexei Ponikarovsky got out of Los Angeles and instead found an environment that he is better suited for.

Those are some great photoshops that Indiana Matt has put together... but this is the greatest photoshop job of all.

Totally fake.

This has been quite the season for me. It started in Europe as I traveled to Stockholm and Berlin to watch the Los Angeles Kings open their season. Since then, it's pretty much been on a downhill slide until Game 1 of the 1st Round of the Playoffs. It's been a truly incredible run so far... I've enjoyed every inch of this journey the last month and a half... and I can't even think of what my reaction will be should the LA Kings be able to win their 1st Stanley Cup ever. Everyone is telling me to "act like I've been there before." But since I've come nowhere close to the Stanley Cup Finals... I decided to ask the 3 bloggers who have. 

Is your teams' fanbase rooting for the LA Kings right now?

The Pensblog, Stanley Cup Winner 2009
The Penguin fan base is still too busy crying. But we'd have to say the majority is rooting for the Kings. Two reasons why:
1. We'd root for North Korea if they were playing the Devils.
2. Rob Scuderi was an all time favorite here.
Bonus: Mike Richards for life.

Sam from Second City Hockey, Stanley Cup Winner 2010
Hard to say. Hawks fans are pretty provincial, so usually once they go out all attention turns to yelling about the GM (rightly or wrongly). I'd say the fanbase is probably split of those who do care. I know a lot of Hawks fans really like the way the Kings play, how physical and nasty they can be. But there isn't much of an emotional connection. It's been so long since Darryl Sutter coached here, and Colin Fraser doesn't exactly get the blood pumping. While the other half is certainly an appreciation after dumping out Vancouver, St. Louis, and Phoenix, all teams Hawks fans have a distaste for. But still, some will never want another Western team to win. I'd say it's probably 60-40 in favor of the Kings among those who do care.

Greg & Justin from Days of Y'orr, Stanley Cup Winner 2011
Greg: I would say a majority of the Bruins fans out there are rooting for LA. People like a good underdog story and an 8 seed in the Stanley Cup is about as underdog as it gets. Is LA a true underdog? Probably not given how good their roster is, but they're an 8 seed and that's a big deal. I also think that Bruins fans are sympathetic towards fan bases that have rooted for a team that has broken their hearts. We've been through a lot of that since winning the Cup in 1972 to winning it again in 2011.

Justin: DOY is personally rooting for the Kings and it's not just 'cause we have a blog bromance going on with TRH. We've been Dustin Brown fans for a while and practically creamed our pants when there were Brown to Boston rumors floating around at the trade deadline. We've probably ended about 10 careers with Brown in NHL 12, too, which might be the real reason Mike Smith wants him banned forever. And any team that knocks out the Canucks is big on our good list.

During the playoffs the season that your team won the Stanley Cup… was there a moment early on when you knew "Man… this team is going to win the Cup"?

The Pensblog, Stanley Cup Winner 2009
Fuck. Not until Mark Andre-Fleury made the final save on Obstrucstrom. It wasn't even believable it was happening.

Sam from Second City Hockey, Stanley Cup Winner 2010
Yeah, October, fourth game of the season when they overcame a 5-0 deficit to win against Calgary. There was a game on Black Wednesday, it was Marian Hossa's first as a Hawk, where he scored twice and the Hawks absolutely stinkfisted the Sharks in the Tank 7-2. At the time most people considered the Sharks the favorite (how funny that seems now). it was then we knew the 2010 version of the Men of Four Feathers could sweep anyone aside when they felt like it. In the playoffs, there was the miracle win against Nashville in Game 5, which added that "it's in the air" kind of feeling. It always takes a touch of something unfathomable to win, and you know when you see it, even if you can't accurately describe it.

Greg & Justin from Days of Y'orr, Stanley Cup Winner 2011
Greg: For me it was Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals in Boston. After two one goal games in Vancouver (1-0 loss in Game 1 and a 3-2 loss in Game 2), Boston put an 8 spot on the board against Luongo and basically rattled him for the rest of the series.

Justin: Last year we called the Bruins run their Redemption Tour since they lost to the Flyers after going up 3-0 the postseason before. Beating Montreal in Game 7 was a huge monkey off the team (and fanbase's) back and then sweeping Philly furthered that notion that the team had what it took. But being from Boston we're bread to expect the worse, so for me, personally, I didn't know the team was going to actually win the Cup until they won Game 6 against Vancouver. There was no way Boston was going to win that game and then blow Game 7. The 2011 Bruins were all business.

What was the biggest adjustment you had to make as a writer the closer your team got to winning the Cup?

The Pensblog, Stanley Cup Winner 2009
Trying to capture it all. It will take it's toll, but it is worth it. The one thing that got us through is knowing that no matter the ending, we'd always have a documentation of what we were feeling. It isn't even the year after, but five, six years down the line you'll go back and read what you were feeling. That shit is priceless.

Sam from Second City Hockey, Stanley Cup Winner 2010
Staying sober enough to write coherently. Well, coherently enough that people could infer what I was trying to say.

Greg & Justin from Days of Y'orr, Stanley Cup Winner 2011
Greg: At DOY we just did what we always did and that was have fun. Relish the moment, be as zany (yes, zany) and creative as possible because the fanbase will basically eat everything up. Actually, the deeper the playoffs went, the better (and meaner) to the other teams we got. It was an awesome ride.

Justin: Writing more posts with out the day job firing me, haha. We did a lot of news posts and trolling posts. We averaged like 3-5 posts a day. It was unreal how much content we were pumping out. We also did a ton of radio and online TV interviews (mostly for the Vancouver market), so reigning ourselves in not to drop f-bombs on CBC and sound intelligent was fun and challenging.. I called Canada ugly (by accident). Oh well... was I wrong?

Any advice to the Kings fans who are experiencing a deep Cup run for the first time in 19 years?

The Pensblog, Stanley Cup Winner 2009
Enjoy the hell out of it. Either way you'll never be the same. If the Kings win, you go into a daze for a few years. You can't get as mad as you used to. If they lose. God help you.

Sam from Second City Hockey, Stanley Cup Winner 2010
I don't know. Enjoy it I guess. They already know how rare it can be. And don't tackle your drunken friend in the arena stairwell after a win. Two-thirds of Second City Hockey nearly didn't survive to Game 3 of the 2010 Final.

Greg & Justin from Days of Y'orr, Stanley Cup Winner 2011
Greg: Get some rest when you can because if the Kings win the Cup, you'll be partying until early September.

Justin: Enjoy it. It's fun. It's fucking stressful. Make some good signs trolling New Jersey (it's NJ, it shouldn't be that hard) and take it all in.

Your predictions for the series?

The Pensblog, Stanley Cup Winner 2009
Kings in three.

Sam from Second City Hockey, Stanley Cup Winner 2010
There is something magical about the Kings this run, but you can say the same about the Devils. At first I thought the Kings would win easily, but the more I think about it the more I think the Kings PP will haunt them, and Mitchell's and Scuderi's slowing feet could have some real problems against Zajac, Parise, Kovalchuk, Clarkson, et al. But then again, I can barely name the Devils' blue line, so I don't see why Kopitar and Brown shouldn't maintain their form. I guess it comes down to if Richards and Carter can go against their playoff form of previous years. If they show up, Kings win. If they continue to just kind of be there, I guess the Devils do.

Whatever, I just want it over so I find out what the hell the Hawks are going to do.

Greg & Justin from Days of Y'orr, Stanley Cup Winner 2011
Greg: Kings in 6 and a Stanley Cup with the crown hanging off of it on TRH's banner ;)

Justin: Kings in six

If there is one thing I learned from talking to these 3 Stanley Cup winning bloggers... it's that we should just sit back and enjoy the ride. The last thing we want to do is be running around like a chicken with our head cut off... right, Rob Scuderi?

I'm not saying that most of the hockey world is rooting for the LA Kings right now... but Days of Y'orr sent these over to me the other day.

The Stanley Cup Final is a magical thing. And being able to experience it for the 2nd time in my life makes me feel like a 12 year-old boy all over again. I wish there was someway to visually represent that.

Nailed it.

Get ready to scream. Get ready to cry. Get ready to troll the opposition in a way you've never done before.

GO KINGS GO!!!

There is probably too much downtime between the end of the Los Angeles Kings 3rd Round series and the start of their Stanley Cup Final matchup against the New Jersey Devils. So when Spike Coffman, producer of The Fourth Period Radio Show on XM Home Ice and The Royal Half's In-House 1990s LA Kings Historian came to me with an idea... I knew it would be perfect to fill all sorts of dead space before the Final begins. So on the eve of the LA Kings return to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 19 years, Spike and I present... a screengrab recap of June 1st, 1993, Game 1 between the Los Angeles Kings and the Montreal Canadiens.

Nothing has changed one bit, right?
Of course I'm referring to the fact that Don Cherry still hates Europeans.

Click Here to Read The Royal Half's Game 1 of the 1993 Stanley Cup Final Recap!!!

Oh... this is happening, people.

When Brigitte from One Girl, One Puck started writing her Know Your Opponent series for The Royal Half just 2 1/2 months ago... I had no idea that her record when she previewed the opposing teams in the most sexist, objectifying way would be 5-1. (Curse you, regular season game against Vancouver!) So basically what I'm saying is that if the Los Angeles Kings lose the Stanley Cup Final to the New Jersey Devils... it will all be Brigitte's fault. Without any further ado... Brigitte's complete mental breakdown over the Kings-Devils Stanley Cup Final!!!

Click Here to Check Out "Know Your Opponent" for the Kings vs Devils Stanley Cup Final!!!

It all started with an innocent late night tweet...

That's right. I had spent the better part of a few hours watching videos like this. And then... within seconds of posting that Tweet...

And then finally... just like he's been doing all playoffs long... Colin Fraser dropped some knowledge on our asses. 

Colin Fraser tweeted at me. I could almost cry.

Within minutes, Brigitte from One Girl, One Puck was on the case. There is a reason she has won The Royal Half Investigative Reporter of the Year Award seven straight years. Here she is with her latest field report... The 2012 Los Angeles Kings... and the Cars That Love Them. Take it away, Brigitte!!!

This post is an example of what happens when there's no hockey on TV. The Kings punched their ticket to the Stanley Cup Final the other night in Phoenix and when the team arrived in LA, thousands of Kings fans greeted them. It was a crazy scene as the players drove their cars past passionate and excited fans. Of course, the only thing that's really important about the video is seeing what the players drive.

Jonathan Quick drives a giant S-Class Mercedes.
He also drove Willie Mitchell because an adult over the age of 25
must be present when you're driving with your learner's permit.  

Anze Kopitar gets driven around in a white Escalade, because he's Anze Fucking Kopitar.

Rob Scuderi drives Jarret Stoll in a Porsche Cayenne, because Stoll is clearly hammered. 

The legend himself Bob Miller drives a Lexus (because he's old),
but it's a SC model (because he doesn't want to believe he's old). 

Trevor Lewis drives a white Mercedes C-Class with red interior... of course he does.
Drew Doughty laughs at how poor Trevor Lewis is. 
(Seriously... does Drew Doughty even remember who Wayne Simmonds was?) 

Dustin Brown drives a ridiculously dirty Mercedes. Seriously, clean your damn car.  

Power couple Mike Richards and Jeff Carter head home for a romantic evening in Mike's Range Rover.

Seriously Quick... are you allowed to be driving at night?

Matt Greene ironically drives a beat up Jeep. He's the Kings designated hipster.

Jarret Stoll is definitely drunk.

I have no idea what Jordan Nolan is driving, but I bet it's a piece of crap.
(I also can't be the only one who thought the guy in the passenger seat was Jack Johnson at first glance.) 

Even Coach Sutter got caught up in the fun!

This is why there needs to be hockey on every night. While I'm already dwelling in ridiculous fan girl territory... Royal Half... can you get me a screengrab of Jeff Carter's ass as the Kings are leaving the plane?

Thanks.

Oh man, oh man... even 2 days later it's still hard to believe that the Los Angeles Kings are in the Stanley Cup Finals Final. And if you've been a frequent listener of the All The Kings Men Podcast... you know that Podmaster General Jesse Cohen and I still can't believe it... and that John Hoven from Mayor's Manor knew it all along. Take a ride with the 3 of us as we breakdown the Game 5 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes that has earned the LA Kings an enormous amount of respect from all of the hockey world.

I love that it says "Alex Kopitar" not only in the body of the page but also on the header at the top.

Check the latest All The Kings Men here, subscribe to it on iTunes or listen below.

And also be sure to check out Jesse Cohen's exclusive chat with Jim Fox about the Kings improbable Stanley Cup run.

I wish there was some way to visually describe how I'm feeling right now...

Nope.

Closer.

Nailed it.

The Los Angeles Kings are Stanley Cup Finalists. Man... let that soak in for a while. Or at least long enough for Jesse Cohen and I to talk about it one hour after it happened. Listen below.

GAME #5

LA KINGS
40-27-15
95 pts, 8th in Western Conference, 13th in NHL
vs
PHOENIX COYOTES
42-27-13
97 pts, 3rd in Western Conference, 11th in NHL

Regular Season Series Tied 3-3

Kings Lead Playoff Series 3-1

6:00pm, Jobing.Com Arena
Glendale, AZ
NBC SN

BEST PLAYER TO WEAR BOTH COLORS:

BEST OPPOSITION BLOG:
Five For Howling

BEST COYOTES FANS TO FOLLOW ON TWITTER:
Carl Putnam
Hipchecks
Yotesgurl

ARE THE LA KINGS IN THE NEXT ROUND?
NO!

Man... I feel really guilty saying this... but I totally didn't expect to write a Gameday Post for a Game 5. Thank god for Indiana Matt, huh?

No matter when you started following this team... we can all agree on one thing...
GO KINGS GO!!! 

Sure, it was a classy move by the Los Angeles Kings organization to invite the Alumni of the 2011-2012 Regular Season team to Staples Center for Game 4... but honestly... who cares? I got to take my Dad to Round 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals. And that's pretty cool.

Honestly... this photo above is the second most awesome photo that involves my Dad and hockey...

This is the first.

Seriously... there are SO MANY amazing things going on in this photo.

UPDATE: The LA Kings have responded.

@theroyalhalf We're 0-1 when you bring your dad.

— LA Kings (@LAKings) May 22, 2012

A little behind on these... but here are the All The Kings Men Podcast Game 2 and Game 3 recaps in which you can hear myself, Podmaster General Jesse Cohen and John Hoven from Mayor's Manor do the radio equivalent of shitting ourselves.

Game 2 Recap:

Game 3 Recap:

As always, check All The Kings Men here or subscribe to it on iTunes.