Kings Stanley Cup Finals Game 4

On Wednesday, June 6th, Nic and I went down to LA Live to watch Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals. My mom and dad were already going to the game, Sabrina flew in from Phoenix to go and Tyler drove down from Mammoth. I knew it could be a huge night with the Kings winning the Stanley Cup and wanted to be close to the excitement and action. We were a bit nervous about it, but these events can turn out to be really great and if you don't check it out, you never know. So, Nic and I drove down there and found ourselves in total madness. Every restaurant had 2 hour lines wrapping around the street to get in, we obviously didn't want to hang out in the beer garden and we also didn't want to stand the entire game so we decided to head away from Staples Center and the crowds to watch the 1st and 2nd periods, then come back to LA Live and watch the 3rd on the huge screen with all the fans. 


We went to Roys and got a table just behind the bar with a view of the TV, the only bummer was that they refused to turn the volume up because of corporate policy. People were chanting, turn on the volume, turn on the volume, and the restaurant was practically empty, but they still wouldn't turn it on. The other annoying thing was that some gaming convention was also being held at the Convention Center that day so half the bar was taken up by gamers who could care less about the hockey game and kept standing up and talking during the game! We ended up running into a friend of my mom's from Mammoth. They were desperately trying to find a place to watch the game because apparently LA Live had decided not to show the game on the giant TV. We couldn't believe how poor the planning was. LA Live had been advertising so hard to get people down there: they called the Kings Epicenter, offered free parking, had the beer garden set-up, advertised that they would give out rally towels, that you could get your picture with the Western Conference Trophy. Why encourage people to come down if you weren't going to provide entertainment for them. They would have been better off not saying anything at all. In my opinion, they did the worst possible thing, encourage tons of fans to come down, then piss them all off and leave them hanging minutes before the game starts with no way to watch the game. We decided to bail after the 1st period and head home. As we walked back to our car, mass crowds of people were gathering around windows trying to watch the game through the glass. Every restaurant had police offers outside because the restaurants couldn't handle the surge of crowds desperately trying to watch the game. I passed tons of fans who didn't even know the score because they couldn't see a TV and no one had cell service in the area. When we got back to LA Live we saw that not only were they not showing the game, but they had closed down the entire area. They tore down the beer garden and blocked off the area. I know they were paranoid because of the Laker Riots, but come on? Why advertise events, then shut them down before any sign of disorderly conduct out of fear of the past. Typical, a few bad people ruin the fun for everyone else. 

Anyways, at the end of the 1st the score was 0-0. We listened to the second on the radio. It also ended 0-0. We met Nic's co-workers at BJs for the 3rd period. Moments after sitting down the Devils scored. Everyone tried to blame us and told us jokingly to leave. Moments later, the Kings tied the game up. We all waved our towels around and cheered. Nic joked that we aren't bad luck charms we just bring the action. I was so nervous!! I thought for sure we were going to OT, but the Devils scored again and we didn't have much time left to attempt to tie the game up. We pulled our goalie and the Devils ended up getting an empty net goal. :( The game ended at 3-1. We knew we had high expectations for our Kings to sweep in the Finals, but it was still disappointing. We LA fans have waited so long for this and we want it so bad, hopefully the Kings can wrap this up in New Jersey on Saturday.