Kings Once Again Put Fans in Dumps

When did Donald Sterling buy the Kings? In the team’s rush to dump players and lower both their budget and roster age, I hope management has also located younger fans who can afford the season seats that I now do not plan to renew.

Demitra MacMinn

Los Angeles

Trading Mathieu Schneider and Bryan Smolinski is not just discouraging, it is also a slap on the King fans who every year try to find a player they can call a King for life. Or at least longer than a couple of years.

I’m done going to the games. I’ll just sit at home and stew over yet another one-goal loss.

Art Bykov

Sherman Oaks

As the playoff-bound Ducks continue to make moves to better themselves, the Kings, still in the middle of a playoff race, have, once again, given up, making salary-dumping and contract-driven trades that mean nothing.

And then they wonder why people question their commitment to winning.

So I’m done. Period.

It’s the Katella exit off the 57, right?

David DerSarkissian

La Canada

This is the time of year when Jack Frost is packing his bags, when hormonally charged teens head for their spring break venues and also when the Kings begin their annual “free a vet” season.

I will take this opportunity in advance to congratulate Mathieu Schneider on kissing the Stanley Cup again this season. Schneider is following a disturbing yet predictable trend by the short-sighted ownership group running the Kings. First it was Rob Blake, last year Luc Robitaille, and Schneider’s taking his turn this year. I suggest we give Mattias Norstrom the chance to hoist the cup since it is apparent that Philip Anschutz and Tim (Lie)weike are more concerned about the bottom line that actually winning.

If a club in the second-largest market in the country, with a state-of-the-art building and with fans paying concession and ticket prices this high can’t compete, they should sell the team now.

John Richards

Newport Beach

The Kings’ management should just make it official and admit that mediocrity is good. Their rationale must be, “Why pay good money for top players when a bunch of nobodies can sell out the joint and occasionally win an exciting game?” But who cares, so long as the fantasy of better times next year induces the fans to keep showing up at Staples Center, right?

But fantasy is where it’s at. It’s what keeps fans paying $65 for a decent seat or $12 for parking or $4.75 for a hot dog at Staples Center. So after the dumping of top players like Mathieu Schneider and Bryan Smolinski for yet another set of draft picks, we’ll try to keep the fantasy alive for another season, Mr. Anschutz, but it’s getting awfully old.

Carlos Martinez

Glendale