WWdN: In Exile

Kings win the Stanley. Freaking. Cup.

I was 12 or 13, the first time I went to a hockey game. It was the old purple and gold Kings, at the Forum, against (I think) the Flyers. It would have been around 1983 or 1984, and a though I can't recall much about the game, a few things are clear in my memory:

• The Forum was not even half full, but the people who were there were as loud and passionate as the Dodger fans I saw regularly at sold out Dodger games*.
• The Kings were not a good team.
• There were a couple of fights near center ice that were awesome.
• The Kings lost the game.

It took me about half of the first period to understand what was going on, but once I figured it out, I was hooked. Los Angeles isn't a hockey town (despite what the press and celebrities are saying right now), and it never will be. Los Angeles is a Lakers town, and (when they win) a Dodgers town.

I loved (and love) ice hockey -- especially Kings ice hockey -- because it took effort to understand the game, because it wasn't something that many people cared about or even knew about. In the 80s, it was easy to be a Lakers fan; that team was unstoppable and as dominant as any team has ever been... so being a weird nerd and budding contrarian, I rejected basketball entirely and embraced ice hockey and the Kings, because it wasn't easy to be a Kings fan.**

In 1987, I got hired on Star Trek, and I could afford season tickets to the Kings. Later that year, Wayne Gretzky came to town, and suddenly people cared about ice hockey in Los Angeles. For the next six years, I attended nearly every home game and quite a few heartbreaking first round playoff games. I started playing the game myself, and eventually became a fairly decent goalie.

In 1993, I watched the team I'd grown up loving more than anything make it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final, fighting every step of the way to get there, defeating some of the best teams of that era before an illegally-curved stick put Lord Stanley's Cup out of reach for what would feel like eternity.

Until last night.

Last night, my friends came over and we put on jerseys from three eras of Kings history, hoping against hope that we would finally see our team hoist the Cup.

That's our friend Burns! and our friend Stephanie. I've known Stephanie since we were 17. We went to games together all through the 80s and early 90s. She introduced me to Anne 16 years ago. Burns! and Anne worked together when they were in their early 20s, and Burns! grew up with Scalzi. It's weird how small the world is.

The mood in our house wasn't as celebratory as it was for Game 5. We've been close before, and we've been heartbroken. We've been Kings fans long enough to know that, sometimes, the team just falls apart... 

But not this team. Not now. Not this year.

After having a terrible power play all year, this team scored three times on a 5 minute major and never looked back. We were screaming and cheering so much, we scattered my cats and Anne had to put our dogs outside.

I've been doing the Hover Wil quite a bit this playoff season.

 

When the third period started, we put the champagne in the fridge, and hoped we didn't jynx anything.

Then New Jersey pulled one of the greatest goalies to ever play the game, and the Kings scored an empty-netter to go up 5-1. Then, Matt Greene scored from the blue line to make it 6-1 with 2 minutes left in the game.

And we all realized that a lifetime of waiting for our beloved Los Angeles Kings to win the Stanley Cup was going to end. This was really happening. A team that wasn't even supposed to make it past the first round of the playoffs, a team that was horrible in December and January, a team that I was afraid would never realize its potential...

...did this:

And there was much rejoicing.

 

After nearly 30 years watching the Kings have a few ups and a lot of downs, this feels really, really good. I'm proud of these guys, and I hope the ones who are free agents next season will find a way to stick around, so maybe they can do it again.

Unlike the teams of the early 90s, when Kings ownership and management seemed intent on sacrificing the future for a slim chance to win one Stanley Cup, this is a Kings team that has the potential to repeat. This isn't the end of something... this is the beginning.

Oh, and for the die hard, life long Kings fans out there... how awesome was it to finally see this:

Kick ass, Bob Miller. I can't wait to hear your call of the game.

*Dodger baseball is basically religion in my dad's family. I can't remember a time in my life when we didn't go to games, or listen to games, or watch games, or listen to old people in dad's family talk about games.

** [Hipster Kitty]

GO KINGS GO!!

This is me when the Kings went up 3-0 tonight against the Devils:

I sort of hover with excitement when the Kings score.

I can't believe they scored TWICE on the power play tonight.

I can't believe they won 4-0.

I can't believe they are up 3-0 in the STANLEY CUP FREAKING FINAL.

I can believe that Jonathan Quick got a shutout, because he's a future hall of famer who should win the Conn Smythe no matter what this year.

I can't believe that this team that I've loved since the early 80s when I went to my first Triple Crown Line game at the Forum is one game away from winning the Stanley Cup.

I'm working at E3 this week, covering the show and interviewing interesting people for Gamefront.com, so I'm going to actually be about 100 feet from the game on Wednesday. If I'm insanely lucky, I'll somehow end up inside, even if it's only for the second and third periods... but even if I don't, I hope that I'll be screaming and doing the Wilflail wherever I am when the game is over.

something stirs and something tries and starts to climb toward the light

I worked on [REDACTED] today, and had more fun than I thought possible. I can't say anything more until July.

Tomorrow, I work on [REDACTED], which is different from [REDACTED], but should be really awesome, too. I can't believe I get to spend two days working with [ACTORS].

(It was a lot easier to talk about my job before the studios became obsessed with secrecy.)

So a couple of quick things before I get back to preparing for [REDACTED]:

• I'm going to the Phoenix Comicon this weekend. I'll be on a few panels, and I'm doing a special show on Saturday night.
• Next week, Felicia and I are going to Origins in Columbus, to play games and talk about Tabletop.
• My testing of the theory that it is not possible to have too many gaming dice continues, so if you're coming to either one of these cons and want to give me dice that I can add to my ever-growing collection, I'd love to have them.
• Today, the comic I wrote with Felicia for The Guild comes out. It's called FAWKES, and it is about what happens between the end of Season 4 and [SPOILER] in Season 5. It's getting generally good reviews, which delights me. The only negative is that I didn't spend several pages filling in people who don't watch The Guild why they should care about the story and who everyone is, which is a little silly, because I didn't write it for those people (who aren't going to buy it, anyway.)I'm especially happy with the artwork and both covers, and super-grateful to Dark Horse for supporting it.

Finally, my beloved Los Angeles Kings are in the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1993. This is what I looked like last night after they won in overtime:

 

Not actually taken last night, but I do this whenever the Kings win.

 

From the Vault: An Open Letter to That Guy

ESPN is running a wonderful and heartbreaking documentary called Catching Hell, about Steve Bartman and the Chicago Cubs in 2003.

If you don't have any idea what that means, you can skip this post.

For the rest of you, here's a repost of something I wrote to him back then, when he was Public Enemy Number One for Cubs fans:

An Open Letter to That Guy

Originally published at WWdN on October 16, 2003

Dear That Guy,

Like you, I am a huge Cubs fan. Like you, I've been telling people "next year! Next Year!" as long as I can remember. Like you, I am crushed that they aren't going to the World Series. Again.

Unlike you, most of Chicago (and the world, really) could give a shit about me. That's where this letter, from some guy you'll never meet and could probably care less about, comes in. See, I think we have a few things in common, and I just wanted to take a minute here and tell you that I think you're getting a bunch of shit that you don't deserve.

I used to be on this big cult TV show that had lots of very passionate fans. Many of those fans absolutely (and irrationally) hated the character I played on that show. Most of them wrote me nasty letters and heckled me whenever I'd show up at one of their events, they never called my house, or tried to hurt me, but I can sort of imagine what you're going through. That thing that makes a sports fan wear only paint and a diaper to a ball game when it's 15 degrees outside? It's the same thing that makes a Star Trek fan wear the same unwashed uniform for 5 days in a row at a big ass con.

I've read that just about every Cubs fan in the world is giving you hell for going after that foul ball. Well, That Guy, last time I checked, baseball fans like to catch foul balls. It's something we do, like paying too much for terrible beer and screaming at a player for not picking up that slider that we're so certain we'd be able to hit if they'd just put our fat asses in the game. Hell, I've been going to 20 or 30 games a season at Dodger Stadium for almost 30 years, and I try to catch a foul ball every single time I'm there. I've even had my hot wife flirt with the teenage bat boy in a pathetic effort to score one. To date, I am still empty-handed. But that bat boy, Jesse, is convinced that my wife's going to leave me just as soon as he gets out of high school.

Anyway, That Guy, enough about me. This is about you.

It's not your fault that the Cubs lost game 6. It's not your fault that Dusty Baker probably left Prior in too long, or that Alex Gonzalez chose game 6 to make his 11th error of the whole freakin' year. It's not your fault the Cubs stranded 7 runners. It's not your fault that they lost game 7. It's not your fault that Kerry Wood, normally one of the best pitchers in baseball, just couldn't get it together in game 7. (That was a sweet fuckin' homerun though, wasn't it?! I was screaming and cheering so loudly I scared both of my dogs!)

In short, it's not your fault the Cubs lost three in a row. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure it's the players fault they lost three in a row. Even Dusty Baker said, "We didn't lose the pennant, the Marlins won it. We were close and the Marlins took it from us, it's as simple as that." You'll notice that he didn't say "That Guy took it from us."

Yep. You know, now that I think about it, I'm positive that it wasn't your fault, and I'm pretty mad at anyone who's giving you shit about the loss.

It's pretty fucked up that those jackals in the news media printed your name, That Guy, and it's even more fucked up that they disclosed your workplace and forced you to change your phone number. But don't quit coaching the little league team, okay? Since you're not a dad, you're probably not coaching that team for your own personal glory, or doing it because it's the only way you know how to relate to your son. You're probably there for those kids, and you're probably having a positive impact on their lives. What are they going to learn if they lose their coach, That Guy?! Think of the children, okay? Don't be a quitter!

Tell you what. You keep coaching that team, and if you ever come to Los Angeles, I'll get some hired goons, and we'll take you out for a beer at one of the best pubs in the city. If anyone tries to fuck with you, those hired goons will kick their punk asses while we exchange high-fives. It will be sweet!

In the mean time, when someone gets in your face about the Cubs losing, you can say, "Hey! Wil Wheaton says back the fuck off!"

When they look confused and say, "Who the hell is Wil Wheaton?" you can just smile and laugh at them, because you know something they don't.

Rock on,

Wil Wheaton
Life-long Cubs Fan, 
living in Los Angeles

My life has changed so much, and gotten so much better, since 2003... I hope that, wherever he is, Steve Bartman can say the same thing.

in which a good choice is made

Yesterday morning, my dad called and asked me, "So are the Kings wearing a crown tonight, or a jester's hat?"

"It's a test of their maturity," I said. "They could easily be up 3-1 right now if they were a more mature team. If they can play their game tonight, instead of trying to out-Shark the Sharks like they did on Tuesday, I think they can win. If they win tonight, I think they win the series. But I'm pretty sure they're just not mature enough to settle down, and they're probably going to lose."

"So, jester's hat, then."

Did my dad just give me the tl;dr? Did I just get Trolldad'd?

"...yeah," I said, "probably."

"Well, go Kings!" He said.

"Yep. Go Kings. Love you, dad."

"Love you too."

While last night's game wasn't a collapse nearly as epic as Tuesday's disaster, the Kings still allowed three goals on five shots, including two on back-to-back shots. The defense looked like a bunch of beer leaguers, and I'll be astonished if my beloved LA Kings play more than one more game this year.

Contrary to what my only-mostly-joking Twitter Rageface may lead you to believe, this wasn't entirely unexpected. The Kings weren't even supposed to make the playoffs last year, so they're still a year ahead. This was the year they were supposed to get in (and had they not shit the bed at the end of the season, probably would have beaten Phoenix or Nashville) and maybe get to the second round. So, taking the long view, (say it with me, Cubs fans!) There's Always Next Year.

Later in the day, I was up the street talking with my neighbors, who have a five year-old and a twelve year-old. They know that Anne and I are empty nesters (SCORE) and they invited us up to their house to dye Easter eggs with their family.

I love that I live in a place where I get to stand on my lawn and visit with my neighbors, and I love even more that I live in a place where my neighbors invite my wife and me to spend some time with their family doing what is typically a family activity.

I had a choice to make: stay home and watch the hockey game, or miss at least the first two periods and go up the street. I love hockey, I love my Kings, and I love the playoffs ... but honestly, it's just a game. It wasn't a very difficult decision.

A little after seven last night, Anne and I walked up the street to their house, and spent about two hours with their family and another one of our neighbors, turning eggs into art -- well, some semblance of art, anyway. I'm one of those artists who can tell stories and perform characters, but I can't even make a good looking stickman with some pipe cleaners and a sign that says, "THIS IS A STICKMAN."

But it was still a really good time. It's been fourteen years since I dyed Easter eggs with a five year-old, and I'd forgotten just how much fun it is to watch that fragile eggshell mind in action, mixing colors, drawing shapes, and offering the unique perspective and commentary that comes from a lifetime that currently isn't much longer than sixty months.

We made eggs that were covered with glitter, eggs that had patterns drawn on in white crayon, and eggs that were shrink wrapped with pictures of duckies and bunnies.

To see my effort to nerd things up, look past the jump:

in which i spend a day as both father and a son

My son Ryan came home for Thanksgiving, and before he left, my dad and I had planned to take him and his brother to play Frisbee golf.

When I got up today, it was fifty-seven degrees below zero, and the wind was gusting with gusto (HA HA HA), and I knew the conditions were not, shall we say, optimal for the playing of disc golf. Or being outside, for that matter.

I called my dad, and asked him if he wanted to go out to lunch, instead. He suggested that we go bowling, and then go to lunch.

Now, I am a terrible bowler, and not a huge fan, but I love doing things with my dad, and I love doing things with my boys, so bowling was more of an excuse to spend more time together than we would if we only went to lunch.

I put on the best bowling shirt I own and drove over to the bowling alley, where my first three frames went like this: 0-1, 0-3, X. I went on to win that game with something around 150. I told Twitter: I just won at bowling, and didn't have to break anyone up to do it. Today, life does not imitate art.

The second game, I bowled spares through the first 7 frames, but my dad was matching me and dropping a few strikes in there himself, so by the 10th frame, I needed to throw a turkey (two strikes followed by a spare, incidentally, is now called a TOFURKEY in the Wheaton Hall of Bowling Nomenclature.) I didn't pull it off, and my dad edged me for the win. I told Twitter: I shanked my last ball, and didn't want to break up my parents to win, so my dad edged me out to win the second game.

Ryan and Nolan had a blast, too, giving out high fives, sincere and mocking applause as appropriate, and issuing the required number of Team Homer and Lebowski references.

After bowling, we went to Lucky Baldwin's for some pub food. When I got home, I made this stupid cell phone video in my living room:

It was truly wonderful to have three generations of Wheaton Men together, and it meant the world to me to spend the day with people I love, as both father and son.

In this video, I say that I won at bowling, but the more I think about it, today I feel kind of like I won at life.

LA Daily: Miniature Golf and the Goddamn Volcano Hole

Having realized my own creative limitations, my contributions to the LA Daily will now be bi-weekly, instead of weekly. Let's all celebrate with this week's story, which appears to be about playing minigolf with my wife.

"Fucking Pagoda hole. That was bullshit. The volcano hole will be the great equalizer!" I declared.

She laughed as she teed up.

I looked around and tried to overlay my memory of this particular course over what I saw. My ponds were clean, my fountains were blue-tinted geysers, my little boats and seaside town didn't have peeling paint or broken windows. The carpet on each hole was smooth and pristine, and the arcade inside the castle behind us was filled with dozens of different video games and pinball machines.

"I can't separate how this place really looked in the '80s from how I want to remember it," I said. "I wonder if I've just idealized it, or if it really did look and feel fitter, happier, and more productive when I was a kid."

She drew her putter back, and left herself in as good a position as any to get the inevitable six on the goddamn volcano hole. Behind us, the freeway was a wall of white noise, occasionally broken by the rumbling of a downshifting semi. The pond to our left was covered with a blanket of brown foam, broken by the nozzle of a dry fountain.

"Of course it looked better when you were a kid," she said, "it was new then."

"I can't believe I never thought of that before. You're exactly right." I put my golf ball, yellow and worn, on the middle tee, feeling heat radiate off the heavy black rubber against the back of my hand. A gentle breeze carried children's laughter and the unmistakable smell of that particular kind of pizza they only serve at minigolf courses past us.

I whacked my ball down the fairway. It rolled up the little volcano at the end and down one side, coming to rest in a corner next to some pine needles.

"I'm really bad at this," I said.

"Don't beat yourself up. I hear the volcano hole is the great equalizer."

I gave her the stink eye as we walked down to finish the hole.

When I'm the king of the world, I'm going to buy a city block, and convert the whole thing to an 80s fun zone. It will have a classic arcade with vintage games, a single-screen movie theater, a waterslide, and a perfectly-maintained minigolf course.

my god, it's full of unicorns

A little known fact about me: I'll do just about whatever my friend Chris tells me to do, just because I want to be popular*, so a half an hour ago, when he told Twitter to go to espn.com and type the Konami code into the search box, I stopped performing life-saving CPR on a hobo and did exactly that.

Here's what ensued:

Every time you hit a key after pressing enter, a new unicorn would pop up. It was so fucking glorious, I made sure it was the last thing the hobo saw before he died, because I knew he would have wanted it that way.

Whoever wrote that code deserves a medal. Whoever forced them to take the code out (almost as quickly as it was discovered) deserves a boot to the head**.

*not true.
** and one more for Jenny and the wimp.

goalies gone wild

This seems like an appropriate way to finish the week.

And, speaking strictly as a goaltender, I can say with a completely straight face that every single one of these goalies was entirely justified and did nothing wrong. Ever.

(via puckdaddy, which every hockey fan should read, every day.)

HOLY CHRISTABLES, @STEPTO! KINGS WIN

The Kings and Stars played a game tonight that could best be described thusly:

INT. Hockey Arena.

TURCO

No goals for you! You come back, ONE YEAR!

QUICK

NO YOU CAN NOT HAZ GOALZ. NOT YOURS!

Seriously, the goalies were insane. So the game goes to overtime in a scoreless tie (which delights my inner goalkeeper) and ends up in a shootout.

The Kings' leading scorer, Anze Kopitar scores a sick, sick, sick goal on Marty Turco, but Jack Johnson can't seal the deal, and Dallas ties it. Here comes Justin Williams for the Kings, who is 0 for 7 in his career in shootouts.

I prepare myself for yet another Kings loss.

Williams takes a weak shot, but somehow Turco (who has been damn flawless and just a MONSTER the whole game) ends up sliding into his own net, taking the puck with him.

There's a review, and the Kings win. Quick gets the shutout he deserves, and I swear to baby Jesus, the whole team better buy him all the beers he can drink after the game, because he's the only reason they ever had a chance in this one and we all know it.

Here, now, is the whole point of this stupid post:

My friend Stephen is a Stars fan, which makes watching Kings v. Stars games infinitely more fun than they ever were before, especially since we have Twitter to do things like this, and like this: