Thanks for the Memories or As the Kings Turn...
It has been both an honor and a pleasure to be the Kings’ blogger this season on Hockey Buzz. I remember when Eklund let me know I would be interviewed for the spot. Somewhere between complete fear and panic would best describe me at the time, so much so that I never slept that night. I guess it is fitting then that one of my first and best blogs was written at 3:00 a.m. one night when I literally woke up with a blog on my brain and wrote it half-conscious.
<a href="http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog.php?post_id=9614">Motivation: How to Reach Multi-National Players</a>
In preparing this good-bye, I re-read the blog linked. My how different the world looks nearly a year later. A European captain led his team to a Cup. Crawford never did learn how to pick his spots. He in fact did suck the life and perhaps the passion of a young team and never did find a way to define roles for the veterans who were nearly all busts. Visnovsky had one of his weakest seasons yet and perhaps of late was up for sale for the right price. Ah, as I said, thanks for the memories… and how the hockey world has turned.
This season, over time, I helped make the Kings' blog a pretty great place to hang on Hockey Buzz. Along the way, I participated in internet radio shows, and on one occasion, found myself the focus of one of the most passionate and well written articles about how I had lost my mind, or had a heck of a grudge against the beach ball, otherwise known as Cloutier. Here is a compelling excerpt:
“Carla is the resident Kings blogger on that site, and she has taken issue with Cloutier like no one else.
Her article entitled Cloutier: Sour Grapes or Hip Gate is filled with venom towards the ten-year NHL veteran. More specifically, it appears that her pure hatred of Dan Cloutier has resulted in most of the Kings misfortune in recent years.”
<a href="http://hockey-blog-in-canada.blogspot.com/2008/03/cloutier-vs-los-angeles.html">Carla’s Venomous Diatribe Says One Critic</a>
I wonder if this guy will apologize now that Cloutier is taking the unique position that despite the fact that two different doctors have medically cleared him to play, including one of Cloutier’s choosing who also found him fit, he is alleging now he is too injured to play. It turns out that when it benefits Cloutier, he can play. When it benefits him monetarily, perhaps because his agent put some feelers out that he might be done, he claims he is now unfit. Go figure….
For what this is worth, I was impressed with my critic’s writing skills, but he has a bias of his own when he suggests I blamed Cloutier for the Kings’ fate. Let’s get real on that one; the Kings experienced some serious suckage long before Cloutier and obviously right after. When interviewed by Kings’ Cast for their Christmas podcast, a real honor and treat, and they asked me where the team would be by April, I said somewhere between 25th and last place. And that was after Cloutier was dispatched. Really.
Either way, I hope this will be the end of Cloutier’s biggest supporters swearing he is still the stand up guy he was when he was a Canuck. I will happily concede that he was just that in Vancouver, if Canucks’ fans could be open to the possibility that he was never that guy while in La La Land. Times change and so do NHL opportunities, thankfully.
This brings me to my point. I have enjoyed my time on Hockey Buzz immensely. It created opportunities for me elsewhere and introductions I never anticipated and much to my surprise, it also made me a better lawyer.
Some may wonder where I have been, a pretty reasonable thought considering I have been MIA since the Stanley Cup Finals ended. For reasons that are not worth discussing, it is time for me to pick up my toys and go to a new playground. I have had the privilege of also spending this season as the blogger for letsgokings.com. (Despite what some may think by the number of responses to my blogs, Kings’ fans are both passionate and vocal, they just have an exclusive yard of their own.)
I am now going to blog less, live more and hang out in that exclusive Kings’ fan paradise where I have found kindred spirits and a new blogging home. I hope people will join me there, letsgokings.com.
Thanks to everyone who followed what I wrote, debated at will, defended me with a ferocity I will never forget and always cherish, and created a spot here on Hockey Buzz that made me truly proud. Peace, love and beware of the Kings, they are down, but make no mistake, they are doing something special. Or on second thought, count the Kings out and Colton Teubert just may prove there is a new sheriff in town. (And thankfully, his name is not Melrose…. Yikes!) …. And good bye!
Carla Muller
Carla.hockeygal@att.net
Thank YOU for the memories...
Who is going to take your place in the lineup? You have incredible talent. Your passion for writing shows in your believable, objective blogs. I've always felt like I was "there" in person when I read your account of an event.
May your pen hang from the rafters...
