The L Word

I totally started writing this post a few weeks ago when it happened but then I forgot to finish it and post it, so just imagine that all of this happened a few weeks ago.

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Last week was particularly exciting because my dear friend J was in town. We went to law school together and took to each other instantly, even before classes began. She really gets my dirty disgusting raunchy sense of humor, and she never judges me no matter what stupid shit I get myself into. We took full advantage of her limited time in LA. It was awesome.

Near the end of her visit we were having drinks at a hotel bar with one of her co-workers, L, who mentioned that she'd met someone from Nova Scotia that day and asked if he was born in the same hospital as Sidney Crosby. My heart skipped a beat. "Are you a hockey fan?" I asked, full of trepidation and anticipation. What if she said no? What if, worse, she said yes but likes the Ducks?!

She eyed me. "I'm a Kings fan," she said.

I'm pretty sure that, at that moment, beaming sunlight of happiness poured from my every orifice.

"Oh my god. L. I am so excited," I said, trying vainly to contain myself. Almost instantly I gave up. "I knew I liked you for a reason. Now I know that I love you." J could tell that I was wildly excited and excused herself to use the restroom while L and I covered all of the bases.

We ran down all of our favorite players. Then our least favorite players. Then we bagged on Penner for a few minutes. Then we talked about the best and worst moments from the last season. Then we talked about the coming season. Then we agreed that our significant others are ridiculous for being Red Wings fans (she understands my pain)! I was already a little giddy from the champagne but after that, I was positively beside myself with excitement.

We said our goodbyes (they had to drive back to San Diego that night), and then I am pretty sure I drove home at like 90 miles per hour and burst in the house yelling "I found another Kings fan! I found another Kings fan!" I felt like I could have run a marathon.

J and L saw proof positive that all anyone needs to do is mention the word "hockey" or "Kings" to me and I will freaking love them forever. This is especially true of female hockey fans, because I feel like we need to band together and, I dunno, demand better jersey choices or talk about why our guys like the wrong teams or something.

Which brings me to my big question of the day, which is this: if L and I were both guys, we would have experienced what I assume is a classic bromance. I experienced the same thing during the playoffs with the hot girl that we sat next to for Game 4 (hot girl, if you're reading this, email me.) So what is the proper term for a female bromance? A boobmance? A vagmance? A non-sexual version of the L Word? (See what I did with the title of this blog? Because her name starts with L? Yeah. Clever.) My girlfriend thinks that it is simply "friendship." I like that.

Cool Weather

I woke up this morning to cloudy, cool weather.

I don't think the seasons are changing yet because (1) we don't really have seasons and (2) it's supposed to heat up again over the next few days, but it was really nice to wake up for the first time in a week not drenched in sweat with the fan buzzing above the bed.

It was ALSO really nice to close my eyes and imagine, just for a second, that it's already October.

I used to love the summers. As a kid the summer meant playing outside (my parents were huge fans of "go play outside, kids!") and vacations to Cape Cod (mmm, cranberry jellybeans). When I started working full time, the summers meant being able to get home when it was still light outside, going to weddings, and lying outside in the backyard. The summers were good.

Then I became a hockey fan. And I fucking hate the summers now. Anything after July 1st is just depressing. It's a tragedy, really. I am already buzzing with the anticipation of a cold snap settling over LA. I can't wait for the first rain. I can't wait for peppermint hot chocolate at Coffee Bean. I can't wait for Halloween or for Christmas...because cold weather means hockey season. It's been so long that I almost can't remember what it feels like. Actually, that is a damned dirty lie. I remember EXACTLY what it feels like.

And I can't fucking wait.

Beautiful.

What do you find beautiful?

There are as many different answers to this question as there are people on this planet. And I, for one, find that tremendously reassuring.

When I was growing up, we had the most amazing book collection. My parents using reading as a reward, so my sister and I turned into bookworms who would sneak books to the dinner table, and read with flashlights after bedtime. One of my favorite books is People, by Peter Spier. It's an excellent book for introducing children to the idea that not everyone looks like them, eats the same food, plays the same games...or has the same idea of beauty. (Note: I purchased this book for my nieces only to discover that the last page of the book basically says that the only way people are alike is that we all die someday, so if your child is not ready to tackle mortality as a concept, you might want to skip that page for now. Wish I'd remembered that before I read it to my nieces.)

That is why I have such an intense problem with what apparently happened on the dumbest show ever, What Not To Wear. Although I'm sure that the show is not completely bad all the time, apparently they "made over" a hockey fan and, in the course of convincing her to stop wearing her beloved hockey jerseys - including a SIGNED Patrick Sharp jersey - one of the hosts said, "A dude would wear that and you're a beautiful woman, so you should not wear this."

If I take a moment to give WNTW the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they were TRYING to say that large hockey jerseys are not necessarily flattering to women. Most jerseys are (sadly) cut for men. (More on that in a minute.) And I am the first to admit that my boobs disappear when I pull my old jersey on and I look like the 13 year old boy that the jersey - size Children's L/XL - was designed for.

But that is not what the host said. She said, if you are a beautiful woman, you should not wear this.

The take-home point: If you are a beautiful woman, you should not wear a hockey jersey.

The contrapositive: If you are wearing a hockey jersey, you are not a beautiful woman.

Oh WNTW, grow some brain cells. Women like hockey too. I know that some might find this surprising. And some, like the hosts of WNTW, even find it unfeminine. But you can take your concept of beauty and your concept of femininity and shove them up your ass, because the bottom line - and the ABSOLUTE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR ALL WOMEN TO KNOW - is that it doesn't MATTER what you're wearing. YOU ARE STILL BEAUTIFUL.

Luckily, I am not alone in thinking that this episode of WNTW was full of shit. These two bloggers wrote excellent responses. And I hope that women hockey fans read them and circulate them widely.

Sadly, it is not just the hosts of WNTW that send the message that hockey is a man's world. The NHL does not have a ton of merchandise choices for women. For example, right now on NHL.COM, there are 30 jerseys for the LA Kings available for purchase. 21 of those jerseys are for men. 4 are for children. 5 are for women.

Men can get the home or away jerseys customized with any player's name. Women can too...but our jerseys are straight black. They don't even have white bands around the elbows, let along silver stripes. BULLSHIT. We can also choose from the utterly incomprehensible "champagne" jerseys, which look basically the same for every team. But they have rhinestones, so of course women will love them, because we LOVE shiny things! Vomit. Women can also choose a Kings bikini. Double vomit. I'd rather be dead. I finally ended up buying my newest women's jersey on Amazon.com, where the choices were not great, but at least I could get something that looked like a REAL jersey for less than $100.

Laurie has an excellent blog on the jersey choices for women. In it, she explains how I feel perfectly.

I honestly don't know how to say it any plainer. This is what we want: We want our team's colours. We want our team's colours in the same spot, as the team. We want our team's logos in the same spot as the team, and we want the name of our choice on the back, in the same spot as the team, in the same font, sans sparkles. We want the same goddamn jersey with a little tapering in for where our boobs go.

Amen, Laurie, amen.

In other words, female hockey fans are getting it from all directions. Our merchandise choices suck, but if we buy a man's jersey, apparently we are not "beautiful." I know there are fewer female fans, so maybe it makes sense to have slightly less of a selection so that you don't have a backlog of female apparel, but come on, NHL. You've GOT to do better than 5 jerseys, three of which are authentic, one of which is a cheap knock-off, and one of which has fucking rhinestones.

I plan to raise my daughters in a world where hockey fandom is not only beautiful, but natural and essential. A world where WNTW has been cancelled for many years, or at the very least, is never allowed on in my household. A world where every jersey choice for a man has a female equivalent. A world where my daughters KNOW they are beautiful, no matter what they wear.

...As long as they are wearing Kings colors.

Worst Case Scenarios

Two posts in one day? Yow!

I came back from lunch to find that my co-worker left the Extreme Worst Case Scenarios book on my chair, with a post-it that said "I thought you would appreciate this information." The page marked "How to Avoid a Vampire Attack" was marked. Thanks, JM. Always looking out for me. Anyway, I reviewed it, and then passed it on to another co-worker so that he could learn How to Survive an Attack by Angry Gorillas. He is seriously obsessed with primates.

Then I started thinking about what the worst case scenarios are for Kings fans.

(1) Dustin Penner gains 50 pounds.

If this happens, I will become instantly enraged. (But I probably will not gain +4 to Strength.)

(2) Drew Doughty signs with another team.

Which team would be the worst? Sharks? It's going to be painful enough seeing Handzus on their team. Ducks? FFFFFF. Canucks? TRIPLE FFFFF!!!! Oh look, I just destroyed my office out of rage.

(3) Bettman decides that Tambellini did nothing wrong.

If this happens, WE ALL LOSE, because it means that GMs can totally fucking lie and get away with it. I'd just hope that every team would learn to avoid the "as is" clauses.

(4) Kopitar breaks his fucking ankle a few weeks before the playoffs. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. NO. NO! Never again.

(5) Mike Richards and Simon Gagne pull a Penner, show up totally out of shape, and play like they couldn't give a shit.

Uuuugh. I don't even want to think about this.

Huh. Apparently all I have done is created a list of Shit That Will Piss Me Off. And now I am enraged.

I think I need some chocolate.

My Own Private Island

It is possible Drew Doughty received an offer for $52M. It is possible that he did not. Who knows. Whatever. I'm so over it at this point. It's like when you're waiting for things to fall into place with someone you're mildly into and it just doesn't happen, and doesn't happen, and eventually you think "fuck this guy, he's a loser" and when it eventually does happen you're completely underwhelmed.

Anyway, back to the $52M. Even if it's not true, we all have a fantasy list called SHIT I WOULD DO IF I WON THE LOTTERY and even if the actual contract ends up being lower, Drew will be able to cross the first few (dozen) things off his list.

My own personal list:

(1) become debt free (fucking...school...loans...)

(2) pay off my parents' house

(3) travel comfortably. First stop: Australia!

(4) never come back.

(5) ...just kidding. I'd totally come back and start a program where I visited schools around the country and taught 2 hour classes on the Civil War.

Fuck, I need to win the lottery.

There's No Crying in Hockey

WRONG!

Apparently, there is LOTS of crying in hockey.

And I'm not talking about Sid. For the longest time I was confused by Crosby's reputation as a crybaby because I have yet to see footage of him actually crying. But I guess this is what people mean.

Whatever. It's not any more egregious than what other captains do.

I'm talking about actual CRYING. Like, actual tears. I'll illustrate this with two lists.

LIST #1: Shit that makes me cry

(1) Commercials for animal adoptions, like this commercial narrated by David Duchovny

...or those ever popular SPCA commercials by Sarah McLachlan

(2) Shit like this:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/10/11/o.father.mourning.baby/index.html?hpt=Sbin

(3) Shit like this:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/08/09/chinook.son.ireport/index.html?iref=allsearch

LIST #2: Shit that makes hockey players cry:

(1) Winning the Stanley Cup.

(2) Being traded away from Edmonton.

NO SHIT. I'm serious. I thought Smyth was an anomaly, but I guess not, because here is The Great One, crying his pretty eyes out over leaving the Oilers.

The Source.

Herein I discuss the true source of my love of hockey: my husband. (This post is mostly about my husband and very little about hockey itself, so you can stop reading it you're only here for hockey- I won't be offended.)

The whole idea for this blog was actually prompted by another blog that my friend sent me this morning. It's an adorable story about the Ultimate Accessory- a loving partner. In the blog, the author opens up her creatively wrapped birthday present and finds a gorgeous bracelet. The author writes:

So yes, it was a magnificent surprise and I sit here looking at this gorgeous bracelet I will have forever on my wrist and am delighted. But what I am more delighted about is having [husband's name]. I don’t tell him nor show him enough that I am so lucky to have him and my partner is this crazy life. We’ve been through a tough year together, many things I have not and will not share here, in which I was not an easy person to be with, never mind love. Marriage is hard enough with two sane people, never mind with a crazy person. As someone who struggles with anxiety and depression I can be downright miserable to be around, especially to those I am closest too. But no matter how down and out I’ve been, he has been there and never waivered. And not just in a “love ya babe” way but in a deeper, wonderfully supportive and truly uplifting way. I could be a tear stained mess with four day unwashed hair and coffee stained sweats and he will tell me I am the most beautiful thing in the world...And while this bracelet is lovely, the man who gave it to me is even lovelier. Having a truly wonderful person to hold your hand IS the ultimate accessory.

And that is what I am most grateful for.

This really struck close to home because my husband and I have not had an easy year either. In fact, I think (and hope) that our second year of marriage will go down in history as the toughest year in an otherwise long and fruitful relationship. For example, our year started off when we "celebrated" our 1 year anniversary in my parents' kitchen, gingerly eating the top part of our still semi-frozen cake, while I fought back tears because my mother was about to have surgery for cancer and my father had taken a nosedive straight into severe dementia. I am not sure that I will ever recover from that month. So I particularly appreciate - and relate to - the above author's candid discussion of how marriage is really fucking difficult. And, like the author in the above post, I too have been difficult to love.

And yet - like the author in the above post - my husband persistently loved me anyway. The perfect example of this was my 30th birthday present, a 10-game flex pack of tickets to the upcoming LA Kings season. He got all of my closest friends and family together to go in on the gift, and then he created little cards and wrapped it and...well, you'll see. Below is the video that he recorded to send to all the people who helped out. As you can see, I am overwhelmed before I even get to the tickets.

This is what he does. He shares the things he loves in life with me. And he loves me, no matter what. And he does amazing things like get 18 other people to coordinate the perfect gift for me.

There is really, truly something to be said for being with someone who takes the time and energy to convey how important you are to them. It seems like such a basic thing, but - like the author of the above post - I forget to do it all the time. Instead I give my best to the people who don't deserve it- the acquaintances, the distant co-workers.

So, thank you Husband. You are the source of so much in my life- warm food every night, good company, a clean house (I love it when you are on hiatus from work!). And you are the source of the second greatest gift you ever gave me- my love of hockey. It has truly changed my life and I will always, always think of you whenever I think of hockey (which, by the way, is all the time). But especially thank you for the first greatest gift you ever gave me - being a truly wonderful partner.

Let Me Get My Tiny Violins

So the Kings have (quite legitimately, in my opinion) filed a formal grievance with the NHL about the whole Fraser fiasco.

Some Oilers blogs (and idiots on twitter) are accusing the Kings of making a big deal out of bruised egos and hurt feelings. They say that the Tambellini did nothing wrong.

Where are my tiny violins so that I can accompany the Oilers fans as they bitch and moan about Kings fans bitching and moaning? News flash, Edmonton: we actually have grounds to bitch and moan. And if you really want to avoid bitching and moaning, get off the fucking Internet, because 90% of it is bitching and moaning (the other 10% is pornography).

I think that Tambellini is a prick (as Surly & Scribe so eloquently put in their multi-part entries). And I think that unless Edmonton has the worst doctors on the planet, Tambellini HAD to have known that his representations about Fraser's health were inaccurate. And those representations were relied upon for any "as is" agreement.

My take on it is this:

(1) From now on, no more "as is" bullshit. Make any trade contingent upon a full physical. Yes, GMs should be honest and they should not make certain representations and then ask the other GM to sign an "as is" contract. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, I'll break your kneecaps with my hockey stick.

(2) If ever grounds existed for filing a formal grievance, we have them. I am usually of the opinion that filing formal grievances or lawsuits should always be a measure of last resort, and that if people just acted like normal adults, many such conflicts could be resolved amicably. And I think Lombardi tried everything possible before filing with the NHL. So the fact that he waited this long is actually to his credit.

(3) Don't support your team blindly. I absolutely LOVE the Kings. But our GM and our coach are fair game in my eyes. In fact, Kings fans should be holding them to a higher level of scrutiny. If TM tried to pull shit like this, I'd be criticizing him all over the place. I criticized him for not shaking hands with the Sharks after Round 1 even though it is not firmly established that coaches should always do that. I criticized him for his irrational love of Penner and his irrational avoidance of Moeller. That's what a real fan does. And I wouldn't hold my punches for Lombardi, either. I'm pissed that he has delayed this long on Doughty's contract. (Hopefully he is just hoping to give Kings fans an exciting August, because man, this is going to be a dry month.)

So, Oilers fans, it's ok to call out your asshat of a GM sometimes. And right now is most definitely one of those times.