Toasted Sub

It's Game One of the Subway Freeway Face-Off™ between the Los Angeles Kings and the Anaheim Ducks... and boy this game did not disappoint. When the Kings want to show the Ducks just how much they've improved this season... what do you do? You send in Brad Richardson, Randy Jones and Scott Parse to finish the job. That's what you do. Just look at how excited Dustin Brown gets about secondary scoring.

I used to score goals too.

Kings 4, Ducks 3, Subway 1

The line of Wayne Simmonds, Michal Handzus and Scott Parse are carrying this team right now. Sure, Justin Williams had a nice goal tonight but Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown and Alexander Frolov have been MIA. How MIA you ask?

This MIA.

This is probably a great thing for the Kings overall. With Ryan Smyth back on the ice skating in practice, Coach Murray has simply told his star players to take a few games off and have the team work on its secondary scoring.

"Frolly, water please."
"Frolly, water please!!"
"When you are leading the team in scoring,
then I'll get you water. But until then, Frolly get me water!"

The Kings unusual policy of torturing their young prospects reared its ugly head again tonight, as Half-Jew and All-Energy Brandon Segal went missing after the first period. I have a feeling the players in Manchester are cutting the phone lines around the office for fear of getting called up to the NHL. But what was the most important thing we learned tonight about the Anaheim-Los Angeles rivalry?


People from LA are still better looking than people from Orange County.

Okay, I'll admit it. When the Subway Freeway Face-Off™ logo appeared on my HD television screen, I liked it better than I did earlier in the day.

Yes, that dude on the right is wearing a "Parros Nation" t-shirt.

But when the logo is shrunk down... it truly becomes a disaster.

Yeah, that reads really well.

It must have been Intern day at Fox Sports Prime Ticket HD because not only was the camera action on the game way zoomed out... the on-air graphics had a very.... unusual feel to them. For instance, when the announcers wanted to talk about the great amount of young stars between the two teams playing tonight, this graphic lit up my HD screen.

Oh.. it's the lesser known observatory in Los Angeles, the Young Stars Observatory.

Then, this thing appeared...

Oh... I get it... they are all stars... young stars! Very clever, Prime Ticket!

And then... the piéce de résistance... all these young stars... formed a constellation!

If they really wanted to go for it, they would have had
Wilco's "California Stars" playing in the background.

In between periods, John Ahlers and Brian Hayward talked about all the news that was going on in the NHL. And some intern got to bust out his PrintShop skills on live television.

Really? This is what their production team came up with?
Was it a last minute decision to do this segment?

And then Prime Ticket HD decided to showcase the 3 year history of the Subway Freeway Face-Off™... as if it started in the early 1990's on ESPN2...

And don't assume that Subway isn't the only fast food chain in bed with the Anaheim Ducks... their penalty kill is sponsored by one of the finest Mexican restaurants in all of Southern California!

Del Taco! The bold sponsor of the penalty kill!
How does one work on being bold during practice?

But the producers saved the most-telling on-screen graphic for last... as they outlined the playoff history of these 2 clubs...

Well, I don't think this one is all that particularly funny.
In fact, it's kind of mean.

The Kings are 10 points up on the Anaheim Ducks and I couldn't be happier. Ottawa comes into Staples Center on Thursday after being beaten up by the San Jose Sharks last night. It's going to be so great to see Dany Heatley play, since being in the Pacific Division you only really get one chance a year to see him skate. Oh... what's that?