I’m a Los Angeles Kings fan. It’s about as true as my name being Josh. From birth till now, there wasn’t a second of my life that I wasn’t a Kings fan. I’ve always been told that I was a bit of a hit at the Great Western Forum, where the Kings used to play their home games. Somebody would buy me a mini plastic hockey stick, I would crush a paper cup, and after the game was over (usually after the Kings had lost yet again in the mid-90s), I would start my own game. I’d check unsuspecting fans into the doors and shoot the paper hockey puck at whoever was willing to play makeshift goalie. I knew every player on the Kings and what jersey number they wore. To this day, I remember my Dad carrying me out of the Forum on his shoulders after the Kings lost game 3 (or 4… same result, anyway) in overtime of the 1993 Stanley Cup Final. The atmosphere was as somber as anything I can remember. It felt like a funeral. About seven years later, when I was older, and my passion for the Kings grew even more so, the Kings had been swept in the first round by the Detroit Red Wings. I wept.
In the 1993-1994 season, the “Mighty Ducks of Anaheim” came into the National Hockey League. I was five years old, but I knew I hated them already. To be honest, I hated those stupid movies to begin with. Slap Shot was more my speed even at the age of five. Spare me this magic, fairy-tale, nonsense. That’s not what hockey is. Give me Reggie Dunlop over Gordon Bombay any day of the fuckin’ week. The only reason Anaheim even had an NHL team was because of those lame-ass movies. That was the only reason I needed to hate them, but I had a long, comprehensive list. Teemu Selanne and his stupid JOFA helmet. Brian Hayward was and still is the worst color commentator in the history of sports. It wasn’t that big of a deal in the beginning, though. They sucked, so who cares? But, in 2003, they went to the Stanley Cup Finals. At age 14, when I really started to learn how to verbalize my resentments, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks (are you kidding me with that name?) were becoming a huge fucking problem.
Fortunately, the Ducks lost to the Devils in game 7. Everyone in California who was an actual hockey fan, meaning Kings fans, could breathe easily. I knew in my heart that Ducks fans didn’t give a shit about losing. “Now, all these fake hockey fans can go back to listening to Madonna, or riding Small World again, or sucking penises, or whatever it is that Ducks fans do,” I told myself. I’m canceled now, aren’t I? It’s a joke, everyone. Anyway, something much deeper was happening beneath the surface. That cute little Disney movie team wasn’t so cute anymore. They were a legitimate threat to come into California and win the Stanley Cup before the Kings. A feat that was eventually accomplished. In short order as well. My team, the Los Angeles Kings, had never won the Stanley Cup, and they have been in the NHL since the ’60s. This stupid Disney team almost did it in ten years. As mentioned, in year fourteen, the Ducks did win it before the Kings.
God needs Satan. Superman needs Lex Luthor. Batman needs Joker. The Los Angeles Kings need the Anaheim Ducks. Josh needs alcohol (you know what I mean), meatheads that wear affliction t-shirts, narrow drive-thru exits at Taco Bell, and Florida Georgia Line to come out with another song. We, just like any superhero, need a villain. Not only do we need a villain, but we need our villains to be competent or even better than us. Arch nemesis’ that are stronger than us provide us with a determination to be better. You know what happens when the Ducks aren’t good? The passion dissipates. When the Ducks and Kings both aren’t good and play each other, neither fan base truly cares about the game. When one of the two teams is good and the other sucks, only one fan base is truly invested. However, when both the Kings and Ducks are good, that’s the passion we all love. The playoff series between the Kings and Ducks was electric. It was the type of stuff every hockey fan lives for. Our arch nemeses do not have to be a particular person, but rather, anything that you despise. If you hate lying or liars, a reason to wake up in the morning would be to make the World a little more truthful that day. In this case, it’s reasonable to consider that at the crux of your hatred for dishonesty lies the fact that you were swerved, worked over, and manipulated by a good liar. A bit odd, but maybe a little gratitude is in order to that liar for handing you your motivation. On top of that, I’m willing to bet that because you were lied to and it worked, you thought it was okay to do the same to others. The capacity to do exactly what you hate most reared its ugly head at some point.
Herman Hesse is quoted as saying, “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.” I hated the Ducks (I still hate them, but I’ll get to that) because my team sucked. The Anaheim Ducks franchise was conducting itself far better than my team ever had. In turn, I projected the insecurities I had about my own team onto the Ducks. No, YOUR team sucks. Not mine. The Arrowhead Pond is a JOKE. Not the beat-up, run-down, gritty Great Western Forum where the REAL hockey fans (drunks) go to watch games. The Forum parking lot did, however, make a great bathroom. Hesse’s quote seems to be true across the board, so long as it is a legitimate hatred of someone. I’m not sure if it applies to a simple dislike. For instance, I don’t hate my boss, but I do dislike her because she makes me do shit. The question then becomes, “who do you legitimately hate?” Hesse’s quote, if we agree that it is true (which I do), makes you reconsider your stance on the people you think you hate. Do you really hate a guy like Richard Spencer? If so, you have to contend with the truth that there is something in him that is part of yourself. Sure, I wish Spencer thought differently, but his esoteric view of the World is just not something that I share. His points of contention could not bother me less. There is neither hatred nor love, neither dislike nor like.
Regardless of how you may feel about the Bible, there is something to be said about the idea of loving your enemies. Matthew 5:44 reads, “But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Easier written or said than done, of course, but with the understanding that we need our enemies to be competent, it’s an achievable goal. Without the prosperity of our enemies, the passion they give us to be better would cease to exist. Without competent enemies, I believe that there is enough evidence to suggest that we, in turn, make ourselves the enemy, which only leads to implosion. Case in point: America is the enemy of America as it stands. Pray for the left. Pray for the right. Love the left. Love the right. What that even looks like, I don’t know, but it’s imperative to find out and act accordingly. After all, we need the people we hate.
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