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Watching the LA Kings play in Shanghai was an amazing experience ... from what I remember.
The 4:30 a.m. start time in Los Angeles meant that I kept dozing off during most of the first period. Naturally, it felt as though I must have been dreaming when I woke up to a 2-0 lead over the Vancouver Canucks.
"Wow! This is pretty great," I thought to myself.
To recap: I set an alarm to watch preseason hockey at 4:30 a.m. and was excited that the Kings were winning a preseason game. ...Hockey is back, baby!
Still, I can't get enough of everything that trickles out from the Kings trip to China. The photos, videos and posts on Twitter and Instagram have opened up a whole new hockey world and OMG WHY DIDN'T I GO ON THIS TRIP?!
So when the NHL released a video of Anze Kopitar mic'd up on the ice during the Kings-Canucks game in Shanghai, I dropped everything and rushed over to watch it.

HOOK THIS CONTENT INTO MY VEINS.
Over two-and-a-half hours of game footage and the NHL boiled it down to a tidy two minutes. Can we start a petition for the unedited version to be released?
Regardless, some great stuff came out of the video.
We learned that hockey players really do have the best trash talk in all of sports:

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Brandon Sutter is savage af.
Then, for a moment, my heart sank...
"…and Jonathan Quick may be shaken up here…" - NBCSN play-by-play broadcaster Brendan Burke.

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No, no, no, no, no, no, no...
Not again. Not like this. Not 2016-17 all over again.

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Oh thank Robitaille.

Jonathan-Quick-sleepy-Shanghai

Quick with elite level one-liners.
And, finally, we wrap up the video with more on-ice insight that we don't normally get to see or hear.
What exactly happens when a center is kicked out of a face-off?
Does the linesman yell at him?
Does the center complain and lob insults?

Linesman-apologizes-to-Anze-Kopitar-Shanghai

Hockey is just too damn ruthless.