The Los Angeles Kings are a professional ice hockey team based in Los Angeles, California. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). Founded on February 9, 1966, when Jack Kent Cooke was awarded an NHL expansion franchise for Los Angeles,[1] the Kings called the The Forum in Inglewood, California (a suburb of Los Angeles) their home for thirty-two years until they moved to Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles to start the 1999–2000 season.[2]
The Kings have not had a great deal of success in their history, winning their division just once in 1990–91,[3] and failing to get out of the first round of the playoffs twelve times in the twenty-four seasons they qualified for post-season play, advancing past the second round just once.[4] Indeed, the high point in Kings franchise history was when they won their conference championship for the only time, advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals in the 1992–93 season only to lose the series to the Montreal Canadiens in five games.
Prior to the Kings' arrival in the Los Angeles area, both the Pacific Coast Hockey League (PCHL) and the Western Hockey League (WHL) had several teams in California, including the PCHL's Los Angeles Monarchs of the 1930s and the WHL's Los Angeles Blades of the 1960s.[6] When the NHL decided to expand for the 1967–68 season amid rumblings that the WHL was proposing to turn itself into a major league and compete for the Stanley Cup, Canadian entrepreneur Jack Kent Cooke paid the NHL $2 million to place one of the six expansion teams in Los Angeles.[7] Los Angeles has a large number of expatriates from both the Northeastern United States and Canada, which Cooke saw as a natural fan base.[8]
LA Kings primary logo from 1967–82.Cooke was thus awarded one of the six new NHL expansion franchises, which also included the California Seals, Minnesota North Stars, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues.[7] He named his team the Kings, and picked the original team colors of purple (or "Forum Blue," as it was later officially called) and gold because they were colors traditionally associated with royalty. The same color scheme was worn by the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA), which Cooke also owned.[9][10]
Cooke wanted his new NHL team to play in the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, home of the Lakers. But the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission, which manages the Sports Arena and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to the present day, had already entered into an agreement with the Blades (whose owners had also tried to land the NHL expansion franchise in Los Angeles) to play their games at the Sports Arena.[11] Frustrated by his dealings with the Coliseum Commission, Cooke said, "I am going to build my own arena...I've had enough of this balderdash."[11]