WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Man am I pumped for this game. I'm a Kings man tried and true but I sure do love those Atlanta Thrashers. There's Ilya, of course, who is without a doubt my favorite non-Kings related hockey player in the league. I don't watch Ilya Kovalchuk enough to know if he's good defensively or if he's a team player, but I like to think he is neither of those things. I like to think of him as a stone cold Russian badass who says shit like, "Ilya do not have time to backcheck like woman," and then punches Rich Peverley in the face before scoring a hat trick; then he hops into his Lamborghini hot tub and has a threesome with a chick with a Chelsea Smile and another girl with 2 C-section scars. Badass, is how I like to think of him.

Then there's Maxim Afinogenov, who is exactly like Ilya Kovalchuk except he sucks. For some reason that makes me love him more than I otherwise would. I don't know why, I just love Russians and foreign hockey players in general. I think it's because I'm kind of racist and I can just prescribe personality traits to them. (This can be seen in my love of Lubomir Visnovsky, who I talk about in the exact same way I talk about a dog.) Maxim is playing a different game from everyone else. He's an iconoclast, kind of like Eddie the Eagle or that one guy who shit his pants playing rugby.

Then there are their goaltenders, who I mostly love. I love Kari Lehtonen so much I take him in fantasy hockey every single Goddamn time I play and then he gets hurt. I love Ondrej Pavelec because of his name. Pavelec, teehee! Johan Hedberg can go to Hell, though.

I love Tobias Enstrom because he's an Eastern Conference Marc-Edouard Vlasic. I love Zach Bogosian because he's American. I love Evander Kane because I can imagine him skating by Wayne Simmonds and giving him a little "'Sup?" nod. (Like I said, kinda racist.) I like Ron Hainsey because there's no way a guy with that name should be a hockey player; he should be writing TPS Reports or writing someone up at McDonald's because they were 5 minutes late. I love the Atlanta Thrashers.

That beind said, I hope the Kings beat the hell out of them tonight. I should be interesting, as Rich Peverley will most likely get Kopitar duties while Fro will be charged with stopping his fellow countryman.

This is the most pumped I'll get for a regular season game until the first time we play the Ducks. Go Kings.

***

Also, did anyone see on Inside the Kings where Terry Murray and Bill Ranford talked about how Jonathan Quick was too hunched over and that it was leaving him open up high. Hmm, I seem to remember someone mentioning that earlier... OH WAIT. IT WAS ME. I SAID THAT.

via Los Angeles Kings @ Atlanta Thrashers GameThread, Nov 13, 2009 4:30 PM PST - Battle of California.