Good morning, Calgary

Good morning, Calgary, and good morning, Insiders.

I’m at a slight loss for words here, gang. I had already written two sentences of what I had believed would be the final Good Morning post of the season before realizing that no, it isn’t, because the Kings play in Vancouver on Thursday. Oops! Hopefully the players, coaches and our pilots are aware of this as well. I watched the entire preview of Groundhog Day in acknowledgement that this is the team’s third trip to Calgary in the span of four weeks and two days, but chose against posting the video because the reference is overused and cliche. I was simply going to embed this story’s tweet but thought better of it. (LAKI Ombudsman Ralph Strangis sets a high bar for what is and is not appropriate on these pages.)

Instead, this is an early thank you for continuing to read and comment during a season that has been different (see: worse) from many of those in the recent past. I again deleted much of what I had written here because I try to avoid talking hockey in this particular column – we’ll get to that in WUWTK – but still wanted to convey that while not every single comment left here is read, there are executives that are well aware of what is being said and have a good sense of the fanbase’s sentiment at this particular time. For the conversation that we’ve had for going on four years and two months, thank you. Let’s keep it going.

I badly want to refer to the arena here in Calgary as simply The Saddledome, but naming rights were purchased, and if I’ve referenced the many corporate associations attached to KeyBank Arena (née, First Niagara Center, née HSBC Arena, née Marine Midland Arena), it’s appropriate to acknowledge this building as the Scotiabank Saddledome. Anyway, the Kings won’t be skating this morning at the former home of Lanny McDonald, Theo Fleury, Joel Otto and Mike Vernon, and instead will hold meetings and workouts at the team hotel. More to come from the players today before I shift my attention to China, where there will be an important league announcement later tonight highlighting a pair of Kings-Canucks preseason games to be played there in September. Let’s talk soon, Insiders.