When the Philadelphia Flyers won back to back Stanley Cups in 1974-75 they celebrated with their fans to the tune of 2,000,000 voices at the championship parades. I mention this because Kings star center and post-season hero Anze Kopitar had this to say via twitter last Thursday: "250.000 fans in la to share the cup with.... Doesn't get much better than that!!!! #bestfansintheworld." It's not so much Anze's initial statement that bothers me; I'm not going to bring down a man who has just won the best trophy in sports whose excitement is certainly justified. The hashtag however gets me- an overstatement that has come to embody the Kings entire postseason run. While acknowledging the stark differences between the LA sports scene and the Philadelphia sports scene, and ignoring the fact that the Broadstreet Bullies endeared themselves to the fans arguably more than any team in history, two million to a quarter of a million is still a gargantuan gap especially considering the exponential increase in sports exposure over the almost forty years since the Broadstreet era. I don't want to say that Philly has the best fans nor do I really want to say that any one city has the undisputed top fans. It's far too difficult an argument to support because it comes down to defining best. Attendance figures could help but they can be heavily influenced by the economic health of an area. Some may say the loudest fans are often the best fans but again some fans cheer loudly for the sake of being loud.
But I digress. The "best fans in the world" proclamation comes off as hyperbolic. Like the Kings themselves the fans came out of nowhere. Against the Canucks in the first round the Kings drew some of the lowest local tv ratings of the opening round. Granted, both the Clippers and Lakers were still in the midst of closing their playoff bound seasons when the Kings eliminated the Canucks. But nothing says fairweather fan like rooting for your hockey team only after your basketball teams have been beaten. By the end of the playoffs Kings games had become raucous affairs, drawing celebrities and the common man alike to "LA Live" area surrounding the Staples Center. Kings sweaters started popping up everywhere in both their adolescent purple and gold and their current black, silver, and white. As LA's run grew more impressive so too did their fan base which has painted Angelos, in black and white terms, as a bandwagon group.
We tend to tire of bandwagon fans quickly, but in reality, we grew tired of the Kings in general. Their emphatic dismissal of the top three teams in the West had us singing their praises far before they lifted the ultimate prize. We exhausted the storylines, we wrote paeans to all the heroes to the point where no one was left unsung. After their 12-2 start everything was complete save for the cup presentation. Even Jonathan Quick had already skated away with the Conn Smythe Trophy. The question was besides Quick, who could win the Conn Smythe instead of who will win the Conn Smythe? The Kings earned every compliment they received; they maximized all the excitement they could for a Southern Californian hockey club, and for that, we give them immense credit. They lifted the Stanley Cup with the joy of school children released for the summer: the outcome was never in doubt but they celebrate just the same.
-Dill Friday
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