TRH RECAP 1: Banner'd In The USA

After a 100 day delay that was caused by a NHL Lockout... the time had come for the Los Angeles Kings to finally take their place among the elite of NHL Franchises with the celebration of its first Stanley Cup Victory. And Hollywood put out all the stops... partying the only way it knows how.... WITH A GIANT TEAM NAME CUSTOM TOPIARY!!! Woooo-hoooooo!!! BLACKHAWKS 5, KINGS 2, WHO CARES, WILL YOU LOOK AT THAT F'ING BANNER!!!   I think I'm going to have this photo embedded on the windshield of my car so I can stare at it constantly. Click Here to Read the Rest of The Royal Half Recap!!! It was the Los Angeles Kings 1st Ever Stanley Cup Banner raising ceremony at Staples Center this past Saturday... and everyone was dressed to the nines! Or the 12s. Or the... 32s? This guy came dressed as The Ghost of LA Kings Past. The best part of being at the Stanley Cup Banner raising ceremony is that you get to see all the long-time LA Kings fans celebrating together after years of suffering. Combined, these two guys have seen nearly 26 games. Just kidding, these guys are awesome Kings fans. The guy on the left even has a Stanley Cup Tattoo. I don't know about you guys... but I'd party with this Kings fan any day of the week. This guy came dressed as a #HUMBLEBRAG. Outside the arena, the atmosphere was festive. And it was really hard concentrating on all the events the LA Kings had organized for this day because it was 80 degrees out. Suck it, Calgary! In true Hollywood fashion, I hope they make this into a trilogy. The Stanley Cup, engraved with the 2011-2012 LA Kings (EDITORS NOTE: offer not valid for Andrei Loktionov), was on display in the middle of LA Live and was to be marched into Staples Center carried by long-time LA Kings fans.  It was so great to be close to the Cup again.  And by close... I mean several hundred feet away behind some barriers and thousands of fans. And this is what the Stanley Cup looked like from the many vaginas that saw it over the summer. Many, those Stanley Cup Keeper guys get all the chicks! No better way to celebrate your long-time fandom than with a temporary tattoo. Call Me, Savey. Or as @twinsnwhims said after the game... "Call Me, Sieve-y." This game was so important, the NHL made sure focus-group aficionado, Frank Luntz, was on hand to find a way to ruin it immediately afterwards. Tyler Toffoli even got some work in before the game. The LA Kings also featured some relics from hockey history outside Staples Center... Newspapers! Finally it was time for the building to open... and the LA Kings decided to use the greatest battering ram ever... the Stanley Cup. It was lifted from its ancient resting place of the Nokia Plaza and passed down one by one from a long-time Kings fan to another, until it reached the front doors of Staples Center. And the biggest question from last season was finally answered... Who in the heck owns a Blackhawks Jim Vandermeer jersey? The LA Kings also took this opportunity to unveil the latest addition to Los Angeles Mass Transit. The Dwight King Bandwagon Bus! I headed inside Staples Center and couldn't wait to get my hands on all the new LA Kings Stanley Cup Champion Merchandise™! An ornament made out of plexiglass from Game 6? I wish it was Christmas today! I'm just glad the LA Kings Marketing Department aren't afraid to go after the niche Stanley Cup Champion Fans/8-Bit Gamers market. Hello darkness, my old friend. As everyone knows by now, the biggest change the LA Kings have made this season is moving their banners and retired numbers off the wall of Staples Center and to where they truly belong... Directly above my seat. There has been a lot of talk about how the LA Kings have made all their banners uniform in terms of font. But I think it's a great move by the Kings organization. They are thinking long-term here. Really, really long term. From LA Kings Inside-er??? In addition to the unveiling of their championship banner, the Kings revealed new standards displaying the retired numbers of Rogie Vachon (30), Marcel Dionne (16), Wayne Gretzky (99), and Luc Robitaille (20). Like the Stanley Cup banner, the retired banners now hang from the rafters. The numbers are larger than the old ones and billow in the breeze, conjuring something you might see an old-time hockey arena like Boston Garden. The Kings chose a sans-serif Chicago Bears-type font for the numbers. Really excited about the eventual Dustin Penner jersey retirement. As my Half Season Ticket Holder Buddy said... good thing the LA Kings didn't win anything during the Purple and Gold or the Purple and Black eras. That way the Championship Banners can just be Black and Silver. I'm just glad the LA Kings didn't retire a jersey from anyone who played during the 96-97 Season. Enough of the pomp and/or the circumstance... let's raise that *****! This is a family-friendly site so I can't share with you the images of what Jarret Stoll did this summer with the Cup. Never before have so many guys come home from the hockey game and asked their wives if they wanted to go to Tiffany's. After 20+ years of my life suffering as a Los Angeles Kings fan... I finally got to see a Stanley Cup Championship banner raised... In amazing 2-D!!! I've never seen anything like it. Mainly because I couldn't see it all game. Now that's more like it. Forget about the banner, forget about the rings, forget about the lackluster performance in a 5-2 loss on home ice... what everyone should be talking about is the new way the LA Kings Starting Lineup is graphically represented on the Jumbotron: Amazing. I went to a hockey game and all I got was this banner celebrating the Stanley Cup win of my favorite team.  Now that the LA Kings Banner Ceremony has come and gone, it's time for everyone in Los Angeles to focus on what really matters right now. Lady Gaga at Staples Center? Nope...   Ménage a trois? twitter.com/Dustinpenner25… — Dustin Penner (@Dustinpenner25) January 20, 2013   Hooking up after the game.