Why You Should Be Cheering For The Kings

I'm going to assume that if you are reading this blog, you are a fan of punk and hockey. I am also going to assume that, like most of us, your favorite team is no longer competing for the cup.

So who do you cheer for?

Let me suggest that if you love punk rock and are a hockey fan, perhaps the Kings are the team you should bandwagon until the cup is handed out.

The Kings have been cultivating a bit of a punk rock culture for some time now. It's sort of expected though.

Southern Califorina has always been a stronghold for punk and we have established that obviously punk and hockey are related. The Kings have been around since before the punk movement began and as one of the only hockey outlets in the region, it's expected punks into hockey would gravitate towards the team.

And some prolific punks have.

Greg Hetson of Bad Religion was actually a long-time season ticket holder of the Kings up until this season (side note: what a horrible life choice, in hindsight). He's not the only punk icon to enjoy LA's hockey team, Hetson's bandmates Greg Graffin and Jay Bentley are also fans, along with Goldfinger's Darrin Pfeiffer.

In addition to punks dotting the seats in Staples Center, they've been known to play on occasion. The Briggs have played at Kings games before and their song, "This is LA" has been used before as the Kings unofficial fight song.

Not to mention, the Kings seem to get the same amount of respect in their own media market as punk does in general culture. For the last month while the Kings have been on a cup run, the LA media has often used the wrong logo when talking about them, making errors on the pronunciation of player's names or just getting them wrong all together. Additionally, they've been vastly ignored while the city's two NBA franchises played their playoff games.

Then of course, some living idiot wrote an article trying to "explain" the culture to the populous.

If you're a punk kid, this story sounds really familiar. What you do and what you care about gets ignored by the general public. Yet when they take the time to pay attention, everything is misconstrued or based on mind-numbing stereotypes mainly because they don't care enough to get it right.

LA is a team that embraces punk. Hell, they even dress in all black.

The punk culture doesn't stop at with the fans and the game experience though, it's even spread to twitter. How many other teams do you know have a twitter account that actively talks shit to fans or even other teams? It's great, they aren't afraid to speak their minds.

So if you're looking for a team to pull for in these final weeks of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, look no further than the Los Angeles Kings.