Yes, USC does in fact have a hockey team.

Hockey is my first love. As amazing as the Hunt for October in baseball, March Madness in basketball, or the bowl games of New Year's Day in college football are, nothing beats a few Canadians smacking around vulcanized rubber for 60 minutes.

My love for hockey was sealed during the 1993 Stanley Cup Finals. I was 4 going on 5 and was just starting to get into sports for real. The LA Kings had just finished a classic seven game series against the Toronto Maple Leafs and were all set to play the Montreal Canadiens. The Kings took game 1 and were poised to take a 2-0 series lead heading back to Los Angeles when Marty McSorley's stick was determined to have an illegally large curve on it with just a few minutes left in the game. Montreal scored on the ensuing powerplay and used the momentum to win the series and the Stanley Cup. The Kings have never been past the second round since. Watching that game, as heartbreaking as it was for me, sealed my love of hockey and sports in general.

Fast forward to now. I'm in college. My friends are in college. I go to a school close to home in my favorite city in the world, I'm getting an amazing education, I have so many opportunities for me, and I get to root for one of the best football teams in the nation. And yet something is still missing. Oh yeah, this. I want that. I'll take double the classes and fly back and forth between Oxford, Ohio and LA if I can get in on that. Unfortunately for me, USC, unlike Miami (Ohio), does not have the #2 ice hockey team in the nation.

But!

That doesn't mean I still can't watch college hockey.

Yes, USC does in fact have a hockey team.

Last year I went to the Pac-8 (Arizona and Oregon State: get your shit together) Ice Hockey Championship in El Segundo. USC played the powerhouse (at least as close as you can get to being a powerhouse team in the Pac-8) Oregon Ducks in the finals. Quite a game, and surprisingly quality hockey. The second period ended early in order to sort out the over 10 penalties assessed in a three minute span. USC tied the game with a pulled goalie under a minute left in the 3rd period, and then won it in overtime. Pretty fucking rad if you're a Trojan.

Anyway, so I found out last night that USC was playing a hockey game against our favorite school in the whole wide world, those lovable Bruins of UCLA. Even better, I found out that the game was literally down the street from where my dorm is: Staples Center. My reaction was obviously (and only a few of you will understand what I mean by this): GATOR!

So me and my friends grab our sweatshirts (second time I've had to wear a sweatshirt all year long) and headed to the game just after the Kings game at Staples Center finished. We get to Staples only to find that we are not allowed in to watch the game. You have to have attended the game and then stayed for the USC/UCLA game afterwards (which we knew was total bullshit because my friend Cornelia was at the game and she was at her sorority during the Kings game and thus obviously didn't attend).

We refused to take no for an answer and ended up getting the ticket stubs to the Kings game from people leaving the stadium, and then tried to get in with those. That didn't work. Being the clever and cunning students we are, we then went to a door where there were no security guards and snuck into Staples Center. I know, my account of getting into the game is not on par with Tim's descriptions of lines around the stadium waiting to get in, but I bet he never had to deal with panhandling for ticket stubs to a game that had just finished.

Anyway, so we get in and though the place wasn't packed or anything, there was a decent crowd for both teams considering the game was at 10:30 pm on a Thursday night off campus and was poorly advertised.

One weird thing we learned at the game: this game at Staples Center was a home game for UCLA. For those of you not familiar with Los Angeles geography, let's review: USC to Staples, and UCLA to Staples (fyi Mapquest does not factor in the ridiculous traffic associated with driving from Westwood to Downtown). So where is USC's home ice? The Anaheim Ice Center, 30 miles southeast of USC. Don't worry, I'm sure the made sense at the time.
Regardless of who's home game it was, the crowd was about 60-40 Trojans. Both sides were loud and raucous, and in general the game was a lot of fun. Bruin fans were constantly doing the 8-Clap (out of time for the most part) and Trojan fans did the SoCal Spell-Out after every goal (also out of time for the most part). There was jeering back and forth, and it felt just like any other USC/UCLA rivalry game (although I will say that the USC/UCLA blasian dance-off was by far the most intense).

The only thing that was unfortunate was the quality of play. USC and UCLA are club teams and were playing their 6th and 5th games of the season respectively. Since they're club teams, they don't get to really practice during the off-season, and I wouldn't be surprised if most of the players got very few opportunities to ever get on the ice during the summer. As a result, both teams were sloppy with their stick-handling, shots, and passing, but showed flashes of brilliance with their vision on the ice. The team will significantly improve as the season goes on, if last year is any indication for the Trojans. They started 5-6 before finishing 16-6-1 and winning the Pac-8 Championships.

The actual game itself was intense. UCLA had an early 2-1 lead, but USC bounced back with three unanswered goals. The Bruins pulled within one, but USC scored again to make it 5-3. The Trojans then killed off a 1:45 two-man advantage for the Bruins. As the third period drew to a close, the Bruins scored to once again make it a one goal game. They then drew a penalty and pulled their goalie with under a minute remaining, but USC, thanks to some amazing defense, managed to hold onto the lead and win the game 5-4, much to the dismay of the UCLA fans that took a bus from campus to Staples Center.

If you go to USC, UCLA, or any other school in the Pac-8 (Beavers and Wildcats be damned), go and watch your hockey team. It's a lot of fun and these guys are literally your average students. They aren't on scholarship, they don't get special benefits, they weren't recruited. They got in to your school just like you, they take the same classes as you, and just happen to play hockey.