Considering that this is me we are talking about, it isn’t any real surprise that I got out of Tempe, AZ. I said it before, I will say it again. If I had a traveling name, it would be Start Later Than Wants. Basically, my day was pack, drive, game. I arrived in LA about an hour before puck drop. And I know I was coming into downtown, but for rush hour, the traffic wasn’t as bad as I was dreading.

On to the game.

Oh, very exciting.
A bit of history for you. If this was Montreal or the New York Rangers, you would have about twenty numbers up there, all retired in the last two years.

Tony McKegney dropped the puck tonight, as part of Black History Month. Jarome Iginla and Wayne Simmons took the draw.

Refs have a moment of happy time before the rough stuff starts.

Not that it ever got that rough. I would say the roughest thing I saw was an intentional high stick by Adam Pardy (big freaking guy!).

The crew had to come out to fix the rink a few times. This was the first:

They were pretty quick with the fix, but not so with the second one, which happened with less than a minute to go immediately after the empty net goal by the Flames (oh sorry, did I give it away?). The second fix was painful.

I will be honest with you. I didn’t go back to my seat for the second period. I was too damn hungry. And so I tortured my body with this:

It was GOOD!
More Action!

The empty netter:

A gaggle of Kings (what is the multiple of Kings?):

Anyways, the Kings were shut out by the Flames, and the crowd seemed more into the game than the Kings ever did. There was some spirited jousting after whistles, but other than that, the Flames never took their eyes of the prize, and even though they only snuck one past Quick, it was all they needed. Kiprusoff was just that good tonight, robbing the Kings a few times, and never losing sight of the puck.

Your final:

Gamesheet
It felt like the trip was never going to begin. The days would drag, the planning was never ending, the reading is still stacking up, and I figured something was going to get in the way. I am so happy to be on this thing. And to be meeting lots of hockey fans. From the people at letsgokings.com to Connie from the Kings World Podcast, there were no shortage of people to talk to. And I guess that will happen when you wear a Johnstown Chiefs jersey in the middle of a bunch of hockey fans. I highly recommend it. Skating at Paramount Iceland tomorrow, home of the first Zamboni. Then the Ontario Reign on Saturday.

If you want the quick updates, I started a microblog for the trip. You can see it here, as well as subscribe to it’s feed. There should be a lot of content there along the way.

And all the West Coast Hockey Tour posts can be found by clicking here.