Ringing In The New Year!

The new year festivities brought exciting news for Los Angeles Kings fans, a team that's back on the winning side! After a four-game losing streak, an eight-day hiatus, and the start of a new decade, the Kings find themselves in the middle of a three-game winning streak with the Detroit Red Wings coming into Staples Center on Thursday the 7th. There has been a ton of news for the Kings and I've been neglecting this space for a few days, but I'm back on the horse!

(LAKings.com)

Here are some updates with a bit of my hundreds and thousands served up to you, the faithful reader:

• Drew Doughty makes the Team Canada Olympic roster as the 7th defensemen in a pretty exciting announcement ceremony on TSN with Twitter all abuzz. There were plenty of skeptics with this final choice, but after last night's game against the San Jose Sharks, Stevie Yzerman is looking very dapper with this decision. Doughty notched 4 assists in the 6-2 romping of the Sharks in their own house, no less!
• Three Kings were named to Team USA's Olympic roster; Dustin Brown, Jack Johnson, and Jonathan Quick. The presentation of this roster after the Winter Classic was pretty awesome. I was expecting Brown and Johnson to be announced, but to see Quick's name included sent a rush of happiness down my spine. Quick has had a great season so far and this inclusion into the Olympics proves his worth.
  
• Much has been said of the Dion Phaneuf hit on Anze Kopitar on December 30th; it was dirty, it was clean, and Phaneuf is a douche. This last part is true. For my two cents, the play was dirty because he was no where near the puck when he hit Kopitar, the hit was clean in that his leprous limbs were tucked in and that Kopitar did not suffer a mortal wound, but the hit was also exceedingly, disgustingly, and horrifically excessive and has no business being doled out by anyone. Glad he was ejected from the game. That is all.
  
• The Kings on the World Junior teams are rounding out nicely and getting some recognition of their own. The Gold Medal game is tonight between Canada and the US making me wish everyday that I had the NHL Network.
  
• This Thursday's game will start a seven-game home stand where I'm hoping the Kings pull a 5-2 record. They'll probably split the two games against the Sharks, blowout either the St. Louis Blues or Anaheim Ducks, and get shelled by the Buffalo Sabres. The contest with the Boston Bruins will be intriguing enough with the battle of the Team USA goaltenders marketed against each other.

Lastly, go Kings!

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Drew Doughty Makes Team Canada Olympic Roster!

For Los Angeles Kings fans, today's announcement of Drew Doughty being named to Team Canada in the Olympics was fantastic. Doughty was the under dog to get named to the Canadian roster with the likes of Mike Green, Jay Bouwmeester, and Dion Phaneuf possibly making the team. I am absolutely ecstatic and cannot wait for the Olympics to start!

GO DOUGHTY!!!!

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Thoughts On The NHL All-Stars

Super Skills:

- When they were introducing the coaches for the west, Bailey was definitely in the camera shot dancing!! Awww, I loved that!
- Obstacle Course: I LOVED the wee net they used!! I was pretty excited to see DiPi shoot the puck 180 feet across the entire rink to score on his leg.
- Fastest Skater: I thought Kopi should have had at least two skills to do. The Fastest Skater event was anti-climactic for me. I think one lap around the whole rink is a much more exciting event than skating for 4.5639327593 seconds. Shawn Horcoff is actually cute when you can't see that he has one blue eye and one brown eye.
- Elimination Shootout: Mike Ribeiro looks like Beetlejuice. Dion Phaneuf: (1) actually has some skills on the shootout, (2) unimpressive on the Hardest Shot, and (3) my new nickname for him is "Woof."
- Young Stars Game: A little boring. I thought they should have brought in Baby goalies, Dallas' Mike Smith perhaps?
- Accuracy Shooting: Thomas Kaberle was impressive. Jason Arnott went to the final and failed to beat the Leaf.
- Hardest Shot: Vinny Lecavalier surprised me with getting 101.9 mph on his shot. But of course, Zdeno Chara. What a beast (103.1 mph).
- Breakaway Challenge: Pavel Datsyuk = BORING. I thought Evgeni Nabokov gave Martin St. Louis the shaft on his shots. AO got the idea with what the league was trying to do with this event.
- If you haven't seen the YouTube clip of Chris Pronger falling on his face, it is glorious.
- I'm posting this here because Finny didn't want to post it on her blog, but Ryan Getzlaf's bald spot is growing. I hadn't seen it in awhile, but wow. I'm sure he gets teased to no end by his teammates, so I feel bad. But Getz, Rogaine actually makes its product in foam form now.
- With all the confusion of everything going on, they put up a picture of Scott Neidermayer while they were interviewing Anze. Dude....do they even remotely look alike? I was laughing for a while...and then got kind of annoyed that they let that happen.
- And speaking of confusion, with so many guys with mics around the building doing mini-interviews, goalies being mic-ed up, and commentators telling stories and whatnot, I thought it was kind of overkill to be hearing like 17 different people talking at once. What the hell am I supposed to be listening to?

I thought the whole 2 1/2 hours of the Super Skills went by REALLY QUICKLY. It might have been because I was gchatting with Finny while she was live-blogging. But everything seemed to start and end in a flash. Overall, this weekend is always fun to watch and I'm glad Anze Kopitar got the nod!!!


All-Star Game:

Some flashes of awesomeness and good times all around. Nabby didn't allow any goals during his period in net; Ilya Kolvachuk had some killer chances though. I have more to say, but I'm too tired because I'm full of Dim Sum. Oh wait, I thought it was hilarious when Commissioner Gary Bettman was booed when he was announced

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