Terms of Endearment #11

Top six player - (n.) a consistently excellent offensive player. In general, teams have four lines of players suited up for games with three offensive players on each line. The top two lines are generally considered the most effective.

Here is the projected line-up for the LA kings for the October 3, 2013 game against Minnesota as seen by MayorsManor.com. With the exception of Matt Frattin, a new guy we haven't seen much of yet, those are the guys you'll see most of the season. But lines are fluid. Things change even within a period. It's always fun to see who is put on the ice with whom.

Dustin Brown – Anze Kopitar – Justin Williams
Matt Frattin – Mike Richards – Jeff Carter
Dwight King – Jarret Stoll – Trevor Lewis
Kyle Clifford – Colin Fraser – Jordan Nolan

Robyn Regehr – Drew Doughty
Willie Mitchell – Slava Voynov
Jake Muzzin – Matt Greene

Jonathan Quick
Ben Scrivens

Three healthy scratches:
- Dan Carcillo, Keaton Ellerby, Alec Martinez

Previous Terms of Endearment: 1) carryover, 2) shift, 3) blueliner, 4) dust-up, 5) drop pass, 6)  shortie, 7) deke, 8) empty netter, 9) light the lamp, 10) leaner

An Internship, at My Age!

Over the past few months, I've been casually informing John Hoven of MayorsManor.com, an LA Kings blog, when I saw typos in his articles. As you know, I love the Kings, and I often turn to Hoven's site for great interviews and such. 

Hoven has been grateful for my help in proofreading. As any writer knows, it's difficult to proof your own writing, and I've been doing it because I would want someone to do the same thing if I had typos on my website.

Anyway, a couple of days ago, he tweeted jokingly,  

Need you to just start transcribing quotes after the game and I'll really be dialed in!!!

I asked him if he was serious and he was. So, last night, I transcribed two interviews he conducted, one with Colin Fraser and the other with Jeff Schultz. It was more time consuming than I'd anticipated! Sometimes the players don't speak clearly and I had to rewind four, sometimes five times. But it was still fun. 

I'm hoping that in return, since I've volunteered to do this free of charge, that someday in the future, he'll see fit to introduce me to some of the guys on the team and/or give me a little tour of the player areas. That would be SO AWESOME for my research. 

But I'm just keeping my head down right now, doing the job and getting him all beholden and stuff. Heh heh.

Would you work for free in order to meet someone famous? Who would it be?

News on the Title Front

I have a series title! 

IN THE ZONE

I like it. I had expected to get something with the name of the team in it, but this is good. Hockey does have zones. In fact, here's a picture of the neutral zone at the Staples Center.

We're still waiting to hear on the book title. There was some discussion about the title ENFORCER'S REDEMPTION, but after I informed Carina that Tim was not an enforcer on the team, they went back to the drawing board.

I'll Never Wash This Cheek Again

Bailey, the Los Angeles Kings mascot, is awesome. He's such a cute, witty, positive "guy." It's difficult to describe what an awesome example of mascotness he embodies. He reminds me of Spongebob a little. He has that childlike innocence about him, and he often cracks me up with his Tweets about his life in the Staples Center. He's also named after one of their scouts who died in the 9/11 terrorist attack.

Anyway, recently he tweeted a picture of his buddy, CM Punk, a professional wrestler, wearing a Chicago Blackhawks t-shirt. (See photo left.) The shirt is actually a brilliantly designed graphic. 

I tweeted Bailey, "Can I just say how much I hate his shirt? It's a great design, but the names on it are wrong!!!" I didn't expect a response because Bailey never tweets back to me. But that day, he did! I was so excited. It was a fan moment, for sure.

Last Line Last Night #2

“Stop staring at me,” she said, resisting the urge to cover herself.

“I can’t help it,” he said. “Sometimes my eyes go rogue and I can’t control them. This is one of those times. Here, you can stare at me back.” He pulled off his shirt.

Photo of Michelangelo's David  by Jerry7171 (cc)