June 11, 2012: The Los Angeles Kings win the Stanley Cup for the 1st time, in their 45th season of play -- their 44th, if you don't count the owner-canceled 2004-05 season.
Founded with the NHL's "Great Expansion" of 1967, the Kings had been a Playoff team more often than not. But, once in the Playoffs, they hadn't done well. In just their 2nd season, 1969, they reached the Stanley Cup Semifinals. But they didn't get that far again until 1993. That time, they reached the Stanley Cup Finals for the 1st time, before losing to the Montreal Canadiens.
It took them until the 2011-12 season to get back to the Playoffs' round of 4, by this point named the NHL Western Conference Finals. In December, general manager Dean Lombardi fired head coach Terry Murray, and replaced him with Darryl Sutter, of the famous 6 Sutter Brothers of Viking, Alberta.
The Kings' leading players were right wing and Captain Dustin Brown, Slovenian center Anže Kopitar, right Justin Williams, center Mike Richards, defenseman Drew Doughty, and goaltender Jonathan Quick. In the Playoffs, they beat the Vancouver Canucks in 5 games, the St. Louis Blues in a 4-game sweep, and the Phoenix Coyotes in 5.
They would be facing the New Jersey Devils, who were coming off an emotional high, having won the Eastern Conference Championship by beating their arch-rivals, the New York Rangers, on an overtime goal by Adam Henrique in 6 games.
The 1st 2 games were played at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. The Kings won Game 1, 2-1, with Kopitar scoring at 8:13 of overtime. It made the Kings the 1st team to win their 1st 9 road games in a single postseason. The Kings won Game 2 2-1 in overtime as well, with Jeff Carter scoring at 13:42.
The action moved to the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles for Game 3, and the Kings won, 4-0. It made the Kings the 1st team to take a 3-0 lead in all 4 rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. In nearly 202 minutes of action, Quick had allowed just 2 goals. The Kings were dominating.
The Devils woke up in Game 4: Henrique scored with 4:31 left in regulation to break a tie, and Ilya Kovalchuk scored an empty-net goal to gain a 3-1 victory. The series went back to Newark for Game 5, and Bryce Salvador's goal with 10:55 left in regulation gave the Devils a 2-1 lead that they held onto. Since a potential Game 7 would be at home, Devils fans had hope that maybe, just maybe, they could become the 2nd team in NHL history to lose the 1st 3 games of a Stanley Cup Finals, and then win the next 4.
Those hopes were dashed in Los Angeles in Game 6. The Kings played an incredibly dirty game, and the officials let them get away with it. At 10:10 of the 1st period, the referee, Dan O'Rourke, assessed a major boarding penalty and a game misconduct on the Devils' Steve Bernier, throwing him out of the game for a hit on Rob Scuderi.
The game was scoreless at that point. But that dubious 5-minute power play awarded to the Kings in the led to 3 goals, and the game was pretty much over there. The Kings won, 6-1, and took their 1st Stanley Cup. Quick was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as Most Valuable Player of the Playoffs. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman handed the Stanley Cup to Captain Dustin Brown.
This allowed Los Angeles to have won World Championships in all the major North American sports: The World Series had been won by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981 and 1988; the NFL Championship had been won by the Los Angeles Rams in 1951 and the Los Angeles Raiders in 1984; the Los Angeles Lakers had won the NBA Championship in 1972, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2009 and 2010; and top-flight soccer league titles were won by the Los Angeles Wolves in 1967, the Los Angeles Aztecs in 1974, and the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2002, 2005 and 2011.
Actually, and very embarrassingly for their fanbase, the Kings had been beaten to the Los Angeles area's 1st Stanley Cup by the 2007 Anaheim Ducks. The Los Angeles Angels, then known as the Anaheim Angels, had won a title for Anaheim with the 2002 World Series.
The Kings won the Cup again in 2014, beating the Rangers in 5 games, all of which went to overtime. Kyle Clifford scored the clincher, at 5:43 of double overtime in Game 5 at Madison Square Garden.
UPDATE: Through the 2025-26 season, the Kings do not have a team Hall of Fame. But they have retired the uniform numbers of 7 players:
* 1970s goaltender Rogatien "Rogie" Vachon, Number 30.
* From the 1970s and '80s, center Marcel Dionne, Number 16; and right wing Dave Taylor, Number 18. The 3rd member of "the Triple Crown Line," left wing Charlie Simmer, has not yet had his Number 11 retired, possibly because a later Kings great wore it.
* From their 1993 NHL Western Conference Champions, defenseman Rob Blake, Number 4; left wing Luc Robitaille, Number 20; and center Wayne Gretzky, Number 99.
* From their 2012 and 2014 Stanley Cup winners, right wing Dustin Brown, Number 23. Presumably, they will add the Number 32 of goaltender Jonathan Quick, and maybe also the Number 11 of center Anže Kopitar, possibly to share with Charlie Simmer.
* They have also honored 1973-2017 broadcaster Bob Miller with a banner, with a microphone in place of a number.
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June 11, 2012 was a Monday. Football was out of season. The NBA Finals opened, at the Chesapeake Energy Arena (now the Paycom Center) in Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma City Thunder, the franchise that had been the Seattle SuperSonics from 1967 to 2008, played their 1st Finals game since 1996, and beat LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the rest of the Miami Heat, 105-94. Kevin Durant scored 36 points. But the Heat won the next 4 games, to take the title.
And there were 4 games played in Major League Baseball, all of them Interleague:
* The New York Yankees beat the Atlanta Braves, 3-0 at Turner Field (now Center Parc Stadium) in Atlanta. How many Yankees does it take to pitch a 5-hit shutout? This time, 5: Iván Nova pitched the 1st 7, Cody Eppley got the 1st out in the 8th, Clay Rapada got the last 2 outs in the 8th, Cory Wade got the 1st out in the 9th, and Boone Logan managed to finish it off without screwing it up, which I, as a Yankee Fan, can tell you was a welcome relief.
Eppley and Wade each pitched to 1 batter; Wade and Logan, to 2. Is it so hard to believe that the Yankees didn't have a single reliever capable of holding the Braves to 2 runs or fewer over the 8th and 9th innings?
At any rate, Raúl Ibañez hit a home run, Derek Jeter went 1-for-5, and Alex Rodriguez went 1-for-4.
* The Miami Marlins beat the Boston Red Sox, 4-1 at the brand-new Marlins Park (now LoanDepot Park) in Miami. Since this was the 1st era of Interleague Play, 1997 to 2019, and the rule was that the designated hitter could not be used when the National League team was the home team, David Ortiz, the big fat lying cheater, actually played the field, at 1st base, and went 0-for-4.
* The Washington Nationals beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 6-3 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.
* And the Los Angeles Angels beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 3-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
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