Well, FSN West is currently showing all of the Kings' wins in the Stanley Cup Finals in 2012 and 2014 this week and Game 3 was on today. I got some interesting stories of where I was at in life during that Finals run in 2012, but for me to tell this story right, I need to give a little backstory of where I was at in life in 2011. Getting ready, this is another one of those lengthy wordy stories I like to tell at times.
So around April 2011, I wasn't really in a good place in life. I got ADQ'ed in Cal Poly Pomona because I just didn't care about Computer Science. Online Poker (the one thing I thought I could make decent money in, but basically sucked at money management at the time) in the states was going to go downhill due to many reasons that you can read elsewhere. Not only that, around the same period of time that the Kings faced the Sharks for the first of four times, last decade, I had suffered some major diarrhea issues. It may have came from me eating Taco Bell around the time, there was a scare eating at that place. I can't remember the details.
So I was retaking a course in Cal Poly (under the extended university thing which costs a lot more than if you were taking a regular course for a degree) to try to save face and hope to come back there in the future, and I don't know what happened, but on April 19th, 2011, that was officially the worst day of my life. I had diarrhea issues, I was listening to Game 3 on the radio with crappy internet speed, and the Kings ran off to a 4-0 lead in the first period and somehow lost the game in OT and they had to go through all of this without Kopitar who was injured within the last few weeks of the season. I've always hated the Sharks since then. To add insult, Daniel Negreanu (famous poker player) went from being a poker idol of mine to being hated enemy in an instant when he jinxed the Kings when they had the lead in that game and cannot shut the f' up on Twitter about how they are going to be fine without Kopitar in the series and then after the game ended, he went all "Oops, I didn't know how to keep my mouth shut." and he tweeted it in such a smarmy approach that made me hate the guy forever. That was one of the few occasions of my life where I really wanted to punch a person so badly. Thankfully, he got to suffer last year in Game 7 when the Golden Knights (he lives in Vegas, of course) lost to the Sharks in the way they did (obviously, we here can argue all day about how BS that major penalty was), so I don't hate him as much now.
So fast forward, I was taking random classes here and there at Mt. Sac Community College to see where my life wants to go and I thought I wanted to go into Accounting (mainly off of being inspired by Duff McKagan and his 1st autobiography and how he went back to school and learned about finance and business in the late 90s-00s despite being in one of the biggest bands in history). So I was taking a random computer Autocad course so that I can improve my chances of getting in line in getting into needed courses to start my accounting program. So in that Kings' 2012 playoff, I've spent my days doing that course and watching the games on the side (it was a night course). It also helped a lot that a guy that sat next to me in class was also a Kings' fan and was also watching the games in that great run. We were both doing well in the class so I don't think the professor minded at all that we were watching hockey on the side. I remember Game 3 of the Cup finals where Kings took so many dang penalties (including having to kill a 5 on 3 for a lengthy period of time) and we were killing all of them. I might have shouted out loud in class saying, "ANOTHER PENALTY???"
Flash forward, three games later, that was a pretty pivotal day not just for the franchise, but life as I know it. That morning, I was dropping my sister off from the train station (she actually works for the Kings in the marketing department) and as I was heading home, I had a nasty car accident. I was making my turn and this lady ran a red light and crashed on right front side of my car. There was smoke everywhere, bags popped up and the air bag doesn't smell very pleasant, surprise, surprise. Manage to get my car to the right side of the street and I was in a very subtle state of shock and had bruises, but no major physical injury. My initial thought when I came to was "my parents are not going to be happy about it." The person that crash came to me to apologize, then a security guard of the train station came by to inspect and then he reached out to the local police to do the reporting. Then I called my parents so that they can do what they need to do in regards to insurance and whatnot. Still drove to my community college that evening with a different car and it was the last day of school and watched the game. I still joke to this day that I think I took one for the team that day, because if I hadn't got into that car accident that day, I don't think we would have won Game 6 in the fashion we did (we may have won game 6, but it wouldn't be in the dominating fashion that they did it with that big major penalty that lead to the 3 PP goals and we were sucking on the PP throughout the entire season). Although, I think my favorite goal of that game was when Brown had the puck and one of the Devils ran into one of the refs in their zone trying to get to Brown, and it eventually led to Carter getting a goal.
That 2012 cup run represents the turning point of my life as I had some direction going from nowhere to wanting to go get an Associates program in Accounting. That 2014 cup run represents another turning point of my life as I went from getting that Associates degree to being accepted back into Cal Poly Pomona and getting my Bachelor's degree in Accounting and naturally here I am now with a decent paying job for three years. Good times.