Pop-Up Hockey: Ready Made Fandom

I start my first writing for Anaheim Calling talking about our hated rivals because it all started there.

If you have been a hockey fan in Southern California for longer than 26 years, you were a Kings fan. You lived through the Triple Crown Line, Kelly Hrudey flopping around in net like a beached dolphin, the Granato tomahawk, the conspiracy of the McSorley stick blade measurement, Rob Blake’s crushing hip checks, that time when Mattis Nordstrom was the Captain. Oh, and also, Gretz.

You lived and breathed the purple and gold until they moved a real NHL team straight into your backyard.

Not a “real” NHL team, mind you–an expansion team. Worse yet, the watered down Disney version. Your best…