The Los Angeles Kings were hosting a round-table discussion with authors from various blogs regarding sundry topics, one of which was which team would fall out of playoff contention this season. Nathan Eide of Hockey Wilderness said this, which is what unintentionally started this tift:
West: Detroit. Ding, dong, the Wings are dead. Too many holes, not enough aging Europeans to fill them.
To promote the roundtable, the Kings tweeted this:
"Ding, dong, the
@detroitredwings are dead" in this weeks 4 on 4 – ow.ly/d37NZ@mayornhl@hockeywildernes@fearthefin@canucksarmy— LA Kings (@LAKings) August 17, 2012
Well, ok then. Is it a huge shock that the Red Wings' guys weren't happy? This was what they shot back:
@lakings awwww so cute. Like a little puppy yapping for attention. Let us know if you need someone to show you how to hang that banner.— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) August 17, 2012
Aww, snap. The Kings responded with a retort referencing the fact that the Wings haven't won the Cup since 2008, but let's think this through. You have a franchise who has won one Stanley Cup in the past 45 years ragging on another franchise that's won, oh, eleven.
I'm not a Wings fan. I'm a Blues fan, which of course means that I despise the Red Wings, just like their fans hate my team. But I really don't think I'll talk smack about the fact that they haven't won a Stanley Cup in four whole years. This is like being a Royals fan and making fun of the New York Yankees. Ok, yeah, you have a World Series, but the Yankees have a billion. Or this is like the Braves fans that were yelling "Cardinals suck!" at the last Cards/Braves game I went to. This made so much sense, since the Cards took the Braves' place as the wild card then won the World Series last year for the eleventh time.
And this is my point — less successful franchises can hate more successful ones, but you have to be smart about it. Don't attack their record, even in years where the cool thing to do is predict their demise. Teams like Detroit always find a way to get into the playoffs, and obviously they find a way to win.
How to express your hatred of the opposition? I enjoy ragging on individual players. If Tomas Holmstrom retires, my main target and his giant butt will be gone, but I'll probably just drift elsewhere to show my distaste of Detroit. But their record and accomplishments? Not going to argue there.
One last thing, though: the Kings were quoting a line from the round table discussion. Was it done to provoke Wings fans? Duh. Did the Red Wings' official account have to be so uber-sensitive to chirp back? Probably not, and they thought better of it. As of right now, it's not on their timeline.
