September 2nd, 2026

0:00The following is a special report from Los Angeles. I think I should wish everyone a happy Wednesday. It is Wednesday, after all, right? Don't worry, it is Wednesday. So tell me second. Welcome back, hockey fans. I don't know, San Dennis King.

1:00Welcome back, Kings fans. I am Jesse Cohen. It is Wednesday, September 2nd. This is Royal Half Radio. And we're here to talk about the LA Kings. And we're getting closer to King's talk, stuff being real, but we're still a few weeks out. So there's not much to talk about today. As always, we'll go through the birthdays and the distinct King's history. But I wanted to get one thing off my chest first before we get into the show. And that is I wanted to say some nice stuff about John Hoven, an apologies in advance of that upset you because I know there are people who like me and tone like him and probably vice versa. But I have been stumbling across all sorts of King's content because I, one of the things I pride myself on is that I consume as much King's content as I can. And I know pretty confidently that I consume more King's content than other King's content

2:04creators. Like, I know that I listen to the banterman and Hockey Royalty and Hoven and Bernstein and Eddie Garcia. And you know, I don't read every one of Eric Stevens articles or every one of Eric knows articles, but I'm very excited not out here. Excuse me. And Runeau. But I know them. My friends of them, I read them like I consume the content so that I know what other people are saying. And in case I miss something, I try to stay on top of it. And I just wanted it. So I've been consuming some King's content lately that is just really just lazy. Like some of it is just AI, frankly. Like there's a couple social media channels that I'm constantly getting pinged on or pinged by or they just pop up onto my feet. I shouldn't say get pinged by them. And it's just clearly AI or if it's not AI, it's somebody who is just scatter shot every team in the league and they make 30 second videos and it's whatever. Then there are, there's also the thing of like, and I don't want to pick on any specific

3:06account. But this morning I stumbled onto an account talk or I was flipping through TikTok and an account popped up. And it was as a young fan. At least I'm assuming young. I didn't see the face. But I'm assuming from the tone of voice that it was a young fan. Listen, I don't want to stop anybody from creating something on social media if they want. I don't want to yuck anybody's yum. But you know, it's just a lot of like, don't know what they're talking about. So I will, I just wanted to say like, and I say this and full disclosure, I've been friends with John Owen for over 20 years or 20 years. Well, however long it's been a long time. I admire John for his attention to detail. Like I don't always agree with John. John may not always agree with me. Certainly we don't see eye to eye on fashion and music and professional wrestling. But if John Hovern tells you that a player is going to play at a certain team, you can count that as 99.9% going to be true.

4:08And so anyway, I just wanted to say nice things about John because like I said, I have been consuming a lot of King's content that has me staring at my phone going, no, like, no, incorrect. And then I always feel, I feel terrible when I realize and retrospect that I get things wrong. And I did yesterday, for example, when I was reading down the roster of players that are attending King's camp, I think I mentioned that there would be three camp in Vitees because I said Brendan Gorman was a camp in Vitee. And I neglected to mention that Brendan Gorman is signed to an A H L contract and is eligible to play for the reign and the Greenville Swabrat. It's now I was staring right at my roster when I said that. I didn't catch it until later in the evening when I realized, oh, Michael, Master of Domenico, Jack Hughes, Ken, to Issa guy and Brendan Gorman are all on the roster. I got that wrong and it drives me crazy when I get stuff wrong. And I know it drives John crazy when he gets stuff wrong. The only difference between John and I is that John is a little bit more comfortable speculating on things than I am.

5:09But anyway, I just wanted to say I appreciate John's attention to detail because I have been consuming a tremendous amount of King's content as the season wraps up where people are just perfectly comfortable getting things wrong. They don't realize they get things wrong, they don't care, they get things wrong. And it's not the end of the world, it's not a big deal, it's nothing major, but it's just it's incorrect and it bugs me. So anyway, there you go. And I texted John and I told him, I'm going to say nice things about you at the start of the show. So if anybody tattles on me this time, they'll only have nice things to say. Thank you Rob Summer for saying no, and it's perfect. I don't, I'm no, I'm not perfect, but I try and make sure one of the things that I grew up believing is it's better to say you don't know than to say something confidently wrong. And I've said this before in the past, when we have tried people out as potential guest hosts on all the King's men as a few years ago. One of the sort of sticking points was that we had a couple people come in that we tried out as guest hosts and they would be confidently wrong about things.

6:09And they was just like, yeah, you can't be wrong. Like, you say, if you don't know, say you don't know. If you're not sure, say you're not sure, but don't say with your full chest something that winds up being wrong, it's just not, I don't know. Anyway, so that's all I'm just saying nice things about John Owen. Joseph Dunbar wants to know if we are friends. I don't think we've ever met Joseph Dunbar, but I mean, you certainly comments enough and participate in up that I feel friendly towards you. I don't know enough about you as a person. Like, I don't know, maybe you kick puppies or something and that would prevent us from being friends, but I seem like a, seem like a perfectly decent person. So sure why not? All right, getting into the program as per usual, we have birthdays and it's Jason Blake and I am not going to pronounce that name out. Well, I will pronounce it out loud. I believe it's pronounced Paul Gay. It's spelled G-U-A-Y and obviously I made that card and I'm pretty happy with how it

7:11turned out. But I have seen that name plenty of times in my life and it was only when I watched a highlight that I finally learned how it was pronounced because, yeah, Joey O.T. says it's gay. And the only thing I could think of was like Paraguay and Uruguay, which, if I'm not mistaken, end in G-U-A-Y and are pronounced Gwey at the end, Uruguay and Paraguay. So anyway, let's get into highlights of guys on their birthday because that's how we do things around here. So here's a goal from Paul. After back to back 54 goal seasons, he's on a good pace again. There's a shot in the score. Paul Gay picking up his second goal of the season in front, getting the loose part. And when the player is kind of laying back and getting a little careless on that play, Gay able to score in at 7 to 4. Well, Gay knocking down at past that's going in front of the net.

8:12Definitely that pass will be on the screen tomorrow. And just driving at home, Lindbergh figures everything's under control. The pass goes across, Gay knocks it down and stuffs it in the net. Now there are two things. First of all, it was really difficult to find a goal from Paul Gay. But second of all, I don't know if you guys caught this or not. I'm going to pause this, hopefully talking won't, the pausing it won't mess up my audio. But if you see right there, I'm going to pause right there on the screen. I don't know if you guys can see that. But there is the goal, or excuse me not the goal, the logo. It's the King's purple and gold logo with the old crown. But with the edges of the bow tie closed in, right? And Taylor from LA King's uniform history sent me a couple screen grabs with this in it. And here's a perfect example of it. This is before that logo was had the edges. I'm going to use my hands here and I don't, so apologies people listening the next day. But like the chevron with kings across it and then top and bottom and then the slants

9:17added to the side to close off the bow tie. And when they went to black, white and silver in when Gretzky arrived in 88, that logo was alleged to have been created, but there we have it right there on the screen. And yes, Taylor chimes in right now that one has Los Angeles at the top two. Sorry, the comment hides the, maybe I can, well, I can't figure it out. But anyway, so it just an unusual thing that that logo very clearly did exist. I can't see it on my screen. I don't know if you guys can or not, but the way that the details are, I can't enlarge the, oops, I advance the video a little bit too far there. Or maybe I rwound it a little bit too far. Where is it? Oh no, I lost it. There it is. Yeah, so anyway, just a quirky little detail of that clip showing that logo, contradicting the story that we heard from David Courtney many years ago who said that that was when

10:21that, that the arrival of wing Gretzky is when that logo was initially created with the closed wings on the bow tie. I don't know, wings, arms, whatever you want to call it. Next up, like I said, happy birthday, Jason Blake. Now, I could not find, couldn't find goals, assists, penalties, nothing on Jason Blake's time with the LA Kings. I'll get by the way traded from Philadelphia Flyers with future considerations to the Los Angeles Kings for Steve Sagan and a second round pick. And this is one of those things where I say like I don't like to get things wrong. It got complicated and I was looking up multiple sites because some places will tell you that there were two separate trades. Some places will tell you that there was a second player involved in that trade. I didn't write it all down because at the end of the day, I don't think it matters and I don't think anybody cares, but let's just say the trade that brought Paul Gated LA was complicated and involved traffic. He played 93 games for the King's scored nine goals and 12 assists.

11:22Jason Blake signed as a free agent in 1999 out of North Dakota, played 82 games for the King's scored seven goals, 21 assists. And in true late 90s, early 2000s fashion went on to become a five time 20 goal scorer that peaking as a 40 goal scorer for the New York Islanders in 2006, 2007 never came anywhere near that as a member of the LA Kings. As a member of the LA Kings, he was just an undersized middle six winger who was fine. I remember him distinctly, but it took Jason Blake leaving and going to another team to suddenly erupt into the type of player that everybody wanted him to be. Joseph Donor wants to know is Jason Blake taller than Matt Sugrelo. That's a really good question. I am going to say I think he is. I remember Jason Blake being really, really small, but in retrospect, I wouldn't be shocked if he's listed at like five, 10 or something.

12:22Yeah, he's listed at 5, 10, 180 pounds, but I remember him being incredibly tiny. I could be that could his slight stature could have grown in my memory or shrunk in my memory, whatever. That's the birthdays. So happy birthday to Paul and Jason. We hide the comment here and that brings us to this date in King's history and I've got tons of video. I don't want to commit to doing video for everybody for this date in King's history, but today we have we have videos so we're going to do it. So first up, sorry, I'll hide my face here while I read this. The King signed Russ Anderson. He played 84 games over two seasons, six goals and is credited at least according to hockeyfights.com with six fights as a member of the LA Kings. The article I thought was fairly interesting. Russ Anderson signs with Kings, defenseman Russ Anderson, captain of the Hartford Whalers last season and a seven year veteran of the NHL has signed a multi-year contract with

13:23the Kings. Anderson's title of captain was taken away in June by a male Francis new Whalers president and general manager who was unimpressed with the defenseman's performance last season. Anderson had six assists in 57 games. Francis offered Anderson a termination contract. Anderson who was free to negotiate with other teams without fear of compensation had until September 10th to sign. Technically, he was not a free agent until the 10th, but Francis agreed he wasn't going to match the King's offer so the deadline was waived. Anderson, six with 300, 210 pounds has played in 435 games, 353 with Pittsburgh and 82 with the Whalers, etc, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah. And here is a video of Russ Anderson doing what Russ Anderson does which is fight. They soft to the right of Janissac and off the dry drags it back behind the net Kings with it hardies pass up to center ice out of the reach of Jim Fox taking away by the flames. Carri other round to a tip bourgeois his pass stolen by the Kings. Hardie drives it into the flames on and now right in front of the bench we've got a fight between Russ Anderson of the Kings and who is a 29-Joyle Otto.

14:26So it is Joe Lotto of the Calgary flames now they are working their way down in front of the flames bench. Russ Anderson of the Kings and Joe Lotto of the Calgary flames and Otto's got Russ Anderson bent over the boards and right in front of the flames bench and Russ really almost helpless to do anything. Nick it looks like his feet are up off the ice and the lines are over there trying to break it up right now. So that's one of the big youngsters that the flames have Joe Otto and he got into it right between the benches for the Russ and four two fifteen Russ Anderson six three two ten so a couple of heavy weights as finally the lines been separate the two Russ Anderson at his helmet half off and a lot of situations when players kind of just wrestle each other and the lines been getting there they can get into a situation where they're being choked by their own helmet straps and or rather jersey getting up over their shoulders

15:28and I don't know if that was the situation but they're separated and escorted to the family boxes. For 29 Joe Otto Los Angeles penalty to number four Russ Anderson five minutes each for fighting time of the penalties two thirty five. Alright so that was Russ Anderson and I felt bad for Russ Anderson like you can hear in the clip they just completely got man handled by Joe Otto forced over the boards down like his feet were up off the ice so that was I don't know if it wasn't too brutal but it was it was rough I felt bad for him. Also this day in King's history the King's sign Dan Quinn and Troy Crowder now I remember both of these guys neither one of them are particularly memorable but I think it was just the right time in my life and my King's fandom that I remember both of them and Dan Quinn I got to tell you Dan Quinn for whatever reason I thought was a different player I could have sworn that for years and years and years I heard Dan Quinn is the answer to some sort of trivia question about a penalty shot now I looked it up he did take a penalty

16:31shot and we'll see it in a second but I thought for sure it was like the King's having scored a penalty shot by a defenseman since Dan Quinn Dan Quinn's a forward I don't know I just had the wrong memory of Dan Quinn but Dan Quinn played 44 games scored 14 goals played for eight game eight teams excuse me in his career which feels like a lot I think the record is 10 so eight is pretty pretty high up there Troy Crowder played 44 games over two seasons two goals to assist and eight fights that's what Troy Crowder's job was to do is to get in fights and let's see one of them right now it's a terrific job and we have got a big groove of brewing at center ice Troy Crowder and Stu Grimson Crowder 6 4 2 1 again of course big Stu Grimson 6 5 2 27 Grimson with the helmet off Crowder tried to get the upper hand here he's got a left hand free and Stu Grimson tries to tug at the jersey the lines been around the perimeter Stu lands

17:32a big left hand and drops Crowder to the guys finally both players go down on the heat Bradley Zaroah which a Mike Wheeler step in and both players will be separate are Crowder and Grimson going to square off you see Stu just misses him with a bomb right off the hop and you saw that fan cheering him on during the fight that's a vicarious identification I don't think he'd want to step in between these two guys there you go that was a fight between Troy Crowder and future King at the time former King now as to Grimson the Grim Reaper and somebody made a comment on the on the auto Anderson fight that they used to let him go and yeah they really did and that one was another one I don't feel like a fight like that would last that long this season and then of course oddly enough in the exact same game as that clip came from Dan Quinn did score on a penalty shot.

18:53The players involved in the one-on-one penalty shot here's a look at it look at Quinn with a head up and he's going to pull the string on McHale terrific shot right off the bar and in here it is from the up top you see he doesn't have an awful lot of room and he puts it just inside the pose watch the reaction of the goalkeeper McHale is in great position at this point and that puck just goes over top of the blocker. Alright so a couple of thoughts on that one first Joseph Dunbar said exactly one of the things I was thinking which seems like a King's home game even back then that game was at the arrowhead

19:55pond of Anai now the Honda Center and yeah you can hear the fans screaming and cheering when Dan Quinn scored the goal the second thought is based on the celebration of the team and the crowd I would ask people in the comment section to tell me what was the score of the game after that goal was scored because I don't think you'll get it right and I'll wait I don't know I'll count down from 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 it was a 3 to 3 tie that is the goal that tied the game 3 to 3 so whenever people say oh you know nobody wants a game that ends in a tie and ties aren't exciting at whatever etc like that people were going nuts if your team is the one that ties the game late to earn a point you're just as happy as you are like this notion that you need three out three overtime you need shootouts is just crazy like people were perfectly excited about ties or

20:58unhappy about ties the notion that like if you went to a game and you paid your money and you bought your ticket and you sat in your seat and the game ended in a tie that that was somehow disappointing is not true it's it's only true if it was one to one in the first period and then the rest of the game was just a nightmare and boring and dreadful but that's true of any game right I've been to games where the game went to overtime I mean last season how many times did the kings go to overtime was every one of those overtime games riveting and exciting and like spectacular no it wasn't all right that's enough of that I'll get off my high horse about ties although I will reserve the right to get right back on it later in current events I guess you can call it I wish I spoke Finnish because Paterri Ramponen popped into my life twice today and the first time for a really bizarre ad first I think I like I said I don't speak Finnish I think Liga the Finnish League and the

22:02Finnish armed forces are partnering in a sponsorship deal I'm not 100% sure but Paterri Ramponen appeared in this ad I think announcing the partnership between the two organizations I'm going to pause it right there and just rewind it so everybody can see there is King's gold tender prospect Paterri Ramponen plays for Kiko Esbu will play a highlight from that in a moment and I'll just play the rest of the commercial because this one in the you can see him in army fatigues there in camouflage right I don't know if it's called army fatigues if you're serving in a foreign military body but in camouflage for the Finnish armed forces and here's the rest of the ad I'm going to pause it right there and then I'll just play the rest of the commercial I'm going to pause it right there and then I'll just play the rest of the commercial

23:08that's the salante again I wish I spoke Finnish because I have no idea what is happening in that comes as a weirdest commercial I've ever seen but there you go Paterri Ramponen popped up on my timeline once today and then I had to go looking for this one but the team that he has begun yes Joa T this is the 18 European style only he's still in the Finnish military I guess I'm assuming I don't know anyway the next up Paterri Ramponen highlight is highlights from his first game in Liga for Kiko Esbu and I don't speak Finnish but I listen I pay attention and so I'm going to play this clip as soon as the highlight stops because there's I don't know three seconds or four seconds where the team logos flash but listen very closely I swear the broadcasters refer to Ramponen as Showtime Ramponen it's one of those things and residents of Southern California know this when

24:12you're watching a television commercial that is in a foreign language but then suddenly you know Carson Toyota or whatever pops up in the middle of a sentence all of a sudden it's foreign language foreign language foreign language Carson Toyota foreign language foreign language so anyway so keep your ears peeled for them to call Paterri Ramponen Showtime Ramponen there you go just a fast highlight it was five to one most of the highlights in that clip are goals obviously for Ramponen's team I believe he stopped 12 to 13 shots I was gonna dive into

25:17whether or not I think he earned a one goal shut out but I went and watched it and it was not as pretty nice goal he gave it up from distance so whatever and there was too much time left anyway I don't know did you guys hear it I thought it was fascinating they called them show we know that his nickname is Mr Showtime but I didn't know that like Showtime Ramponen was how they address him in the middle of calling a game I'll play it one more time you guys tell me if you if you heard it or not all right there did you hear it I'm gonna back it up one more time because I'm almost positive I heard it all right everybody else in the comments section is saying they heard it so I'm not

26:22crazy like I said I wish I spoke finished I wish I spoke Swedish I wish I spoke Czech and Slovakian and every other language every other German every other player we have from a foreign country I wish I spoke all those languages but I do not sadly so I have to rely on other people I'm gonna kind of wrap it up there's not a ton still yet to talk about but as always go to the royal half calm the votes are still up we're still doing the bracket for the best uniform in King's history Taylor from L.A. King's uniform history did a fantastic job creating this bracket and I've already begun putting work into what we're gonna do in October for that bracket because why should brackets be just for March you know once once those of us the old team at the royal half one once we created bark madness I was very keen on the brackets and I was like hey let's do more brackets more brackets for this more brackets for that but for now we've got the uniform bracket up at the royal half calm there will be more whether it's on the royal half calm or to be a loyal royal again

27:23encourage you to join the loyal royals and I didn't mention it at the top of the show so I'll mention it now join the booster club it's cheap it's easy and it's totally worth it and oh what's then well I'll just I guess we can talk about this here what's the news on the new jersey as far as I know there is no news the NHL announced what was it last week two weeks ago that the hometown remix is officially now announced frankly I don't understand why the why the industry moves as slow as they do about announcing things there are a ton of things that I can confidently say in the past have been settled business but then you're like well we can't announce it today because reasons and then you wind up waiting a week a day a week a month three months whatever just so that you know you can satisfy this weird internal calendar purple black white and gold on one jersey that

28:25seems to be what it's going to be I mean DJ Bean from what chaos made a mock up of the jersey a while ago and if I remember correctly I don't think I have it still in my history so I don't think I can pull it up very easily but I asked AI to sort of spit out a a mock up of what I thought it would look like and yeah I don't actually I I guess I deleted it so I can't immediately show it to you but it seems it seems like yes it's going to be purple and there will be black white and gold on it what type of gold what type of silver or whatever it will be interesting um I don't know we'll have to see I'm I am told by people who have seen it that I won't like it now I think a lot of people generally speaking assume that I'm pretty negative on most things I don't think I'm as negative as other people think I am I think people have a pretty bad read on what I will like or what I won't

29:31like or what I think or don't think but having said that it's not encouraging to hear that people think I won't like it now having said that people told me that I wouldn't like the king's rebrand from a few seasons ago that the expanded um Chevy crown you know logo with the crown and honestly I I actually quite like it a lot I like the new crown I like the rebrand I like the logo I like the I mean I those people were wrong whoever thought that um I have loved both reverse retro jerseys that the king's made I don't like their I don't think they wore a stadium series uniform that I liked I like I dislike some more than others but anyway we'll have to wait and see I don't know when they're going to announce the actual design of the hometown remix but I soon I'm assuming um so we'll have to wait and find out for that um bodid jerseys this first preseason game last

30:31year then they dropped the third jerseys like three days after never buy a jerseys on opening night 100% I mean and just look no further than last season uh well I guess that wasn't opening night but I would say always wait a beat because when penaren was acquired and they went through the whole thing about what numbers you know where and then shortly after Cory Perry was traded and then that was that uh and the numbers change so yeah always take a beat consider and again don't be afraid to buy a blank jerseys um or buy somebody jerseys who's already been there a long time like when I was a kid I got a robotized jerseys he got traded away and I had no problem continuing to wear the robotized jerseys and then they brought it back two more times and it was great every time so if you want to buy a jerseys I'd say like you can't go wrong with an entry in kempay because even if for whatever horrible reason Adrian kempay winds up playing somewhere else he's still Adrian kempay he's still a huge part of king's history um but if you're gonna buy like a rookie jerseys I'd say like wait a beat um but anyway whatever uh okay I'm gonna wrap it up here now um it's shorter one today because like I said

31:38there isn't a ton to talk about maybe tomorrow we'll get into the athletic ranking the top 50 players there were a couple of kings on the list in weird spots and I thought they had weird things to say about them but now we can get into that tomorrow so thanks everybody for watching and as always I will well on let me put the correct background by me I will uh talk to you tomorrow you know we do the best we can but thanks for watching September now things are starting to pick up there's no hockey on television but that's about to change I'm very jealous 17 days first preseason game now since the 19th of September I cannot wait and on the main time we'll forget to like it subscribe check out my patreon blah blah blah

32:42you