How NASA Went From Outerspace to the Offensive Zone

THX BUD’s “California Craves Hockey” series looks beyond the LA Kings to learn more about how other fans participate in, support, and relate to the game we love. Want to share with us? Get in touch.

 
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientists don’t only want to be known for their work building spacecrafts and landing rovers on Mars. They also want to make a name for themselves in hockey.

The JPL Rovers are still pretty new. While the NHL was getting into the thick of CBA negotiations, failing to avoid another lockout, JPL employees were busy gathering a team to compete in a rec league with an unusual variety of Southern California businesses — from filmmakers to bar owners to, yep, scientists. In August 2012, the Rovers became official. Their fans are called the “Roverettes.” Their first puck dropped in early September.

As a Kings blogger, it’s essentially impossible for me to watch the Rovers without comparing them to the LA’s NHL team. Almost as soon as the Rovers take the ice for Monday night’s game at Pasadena Ice Skating Center, Diane and I both start to draw parallels. They were created on the heels of the Kings winning their first Stanley Cup in June 2012 and bringing fresh spotlight to LA-area hockey. Like the Kings in 2012, the Rovers are in the last playoff spot in their division.

Tonight’s game is special for two reasons: 1) It’s the final game of their Fall 2013-14 regular season, and 2) like the Kings ending their last two seasons against the San Jose Sharks, the Rovers are playing their best rival, DreamWorks Animation, who just go by DWA as a hockey team.

Don’t even try to resist the urge to come up with cheesy Wall-E (which was a Pixar movie) vs DreamWorks jokes. The Rovers and Roverettes don’t.

Courtesy JPL Rovers

The last time the Rovers and DWA played, DreamWorks earned a shutout, winning the game 2-0. The Rovers will be in the playoff picture even if they lose, but getting a little revenge could help them enter the postseason on a high note.

There’s a surprise waiting for the team and their fans in the freezing stands, too. Their best offensive player for much of this season, Matt Lenda, has come to support the team. Lenda injured his foot during a game three months ago. He’s a Mission Operations Engineer during the day, but as a Rover, he’s been one of the league’s scoring leaders. He was on pace for 53 points before getting hurt.

“Mistakes were made,” he says ominously, about his spill. The good news is that he’s finished physical therapy and expects to make a full recovery. He can’t wait to get back to playing next season.

Ben Sveinbjörnsson, who has taken lead on building the reach of the Roverettes, shows Lenda the Rovers Facebook group he recently created. It’s reached 35 members today.

“Oh my god!” Lenda says. He hadn’t known anyone followed the team online.

The biggest moment in their young existence has been making the league final during their 2013 Spring-Summer season. It was so huge for the team that they filled the stands with dozens of coworkers and friends. One of the JPL’s directors showed up. They lost 3-2, but being in a playoff this year spot means they have another shot now.

Photo courtesy JPL Rovers.

Tonight’s game starts out fast and evenly matched. Of course, the atmosphere isn’t as chaotic as a packed Staples Center, but there’s action at both ends. Though DWA has a possession edge early, the Rovers get the better scoring chances as the game finds a rhythm. Halfway through the period, the ice tilts toward the DreamWorks’ end. Their goalie gets challenged repeatedly while the Rovers’ netminder, Geoff Wagner, reminds me of Jonathan Quick. It’s not because he plays like he’s carrying a team on his back. It’s because Quick can also find himself hanging out all alone in the defensive end for long stretches of Kings games.

Just before the clock ticks down to 3:00, DreamWorks takes the first penalty of the night. All of the Rovers’ work finally pays off with a power play goal at 18:36. 1-0.

Halfway through the second period, the Rovers widen the gap and score at even strength. Their most exciting player to watch is Manuel Lopez, wearing #52. Diane and I try to think of an NHL player with that number to compare him to, and Brandon Bollig on the Chicago Blackhawks comes to mind first. That’s heinously unfair, because Lopez honestly looks way better on the ice. He creates an excellent breakaway opportunity, and then sets up a beautiful 2-on-1 chance minutes later. A perfect centering pass forces the DreamWorks goaltender to come up huge at point-blank range.

DWA have a decent number of chances, too. Their breakouts and passes through the neutral zone click well, but the Rovers’ defense excels tonight. A significant part of that effort comes from the Rovers’ only woman on the team. She’s shorter than everyone else on the Rovers bench, but she’s almost always in the right position to deflect shots or clear rebounds.

It also doesn’t help DreamWorks that goalie Wagner’s having a hot night. Their best chance comes on a fumbled glove save, but after that, Wagner’s in position for every shot, including reaching out to grab a puck through three or four players in front of him.

And then, with 3:27 left in the second, the Rovers’ Michael Errico gets a partial breakaway. It’s hilarious to me that he’s wearing #10, because of course I think of every breakaway tease Mike Richards has had for the Kings this season, but unlike Richards these days, Errico converts on his opportunity. The Rovers head into the second intermission up 3-0.

Mission Navigator and Rovers center Juan Arrieta comes to talk to his family during the break. His two young girls kiss their hands and press them to the glass even after he eventually heads back to the bench and prepares for the final period. They take front row seats to rally for dad, starting up an impromptu Rovers chant once play restarts.

Arrieta’s family watches the Rovers play.

In general, Rovers fans cheer and chirp their team pretty equally. When Thierry Botter falls on his butt while trying to enter the offensive zone, Lenda and a Roverette debate how to measure the impact the body sustains from a fall on the ice.

“A fuckton,” Lenda says.

“A metric fuckton or a fuckton? …An English fuckton is larger.”

When Colin Bloom takes the Rovers’ first penalty of the game, he’s cheered for being a beast, and then fakes a tantrum to sell his stroll to the box.

Wagner grows increasingly aggressive in goal as the game winds down. He comes out of net to play the puck more, and the Roverettes shout for him to stay closer to the crease.

“He scares us every time he comes out of his net,” Sveinbjörnsson says, and then recalls a recent game where Wagner skated out to play the puck and gave it away to an opposing player. That player gleefully took advantage and scored a goal. Oh, boy, does that sound familiar.

 
The most fun part of watching the Rovers play comes during the third period. With seven minutes to go in the game, fans unleash their “Seven Minutes of Terror.” The Roverettes start stomping and hollering, making as much noise as possible to startle and intimidate Rover opponents while pumping up the team. That usually lasts through the next stoppage in play.

It’s a reference to the Curiosity Rover landing sequence, seven minutes in which a checklist of protocols had to go exactly right for touchdown on Mars to be successful. Drawing on that for the hockey games was an off-the-cuff idea. It was perfect, except that when the clock hit 7:00 the first time Roverettes tried it, it was during a dead moment in the game. Even the Rovers players on the ice were confused.

“They looked at us like [we were crazy],” Sveinbjörnsson says. “We explained after. But then the following time we did it, they scored.”

Now it’s tradition.

The “Seven Minutes of Terror” don’t result in a goal this time, but it feels like an awesome celebration for the Rovers’ huge lead. With five minutes left, a turnover in the defensive zone sees DreamWorks net their first goal of the game. It spoils Wagner’s shutout, but a 4-1 score almost guarantees the JPL crew are ending their regular season with a win.

Rovers player Ben Solish after the game.

At 18:29, the Rovers captain gets boarded. It’s scary moment when he doesn’t get up right away, but after a minute, he stands on his own power and the fans applaud. Lenda stands and shouts at him, saying, “Paul, don’t do that! It sucks! I know,” gesturing to his own foot.

The Rovers end the game on the power play. Dreamworks’ team kill the final penalty, but working to defend means they also don’t get another chance to cut into the Rovers’ lead. Scientists win.

To celebrate, the Rovers do exactly what anyone might expect a bunch of rocket scientists to do following a win — they drink beer.

A small bar about four blocks away has become the regular Rovers post-game crash pad. Pushing tables together outside and ordering two pitchers of beer always kicks off the cool down. The waitress taking care of the party asks, “Did they win?” and throws her arms in the air after hearing the answer.

“They lost the last two,” she says. “I was hoping.”

She isn’t the only one. One of the hostesses inside buys two more pitchers of beer and delivers them to the table. It’s been a couple games since a win and a couple weeks since she’s worked a shift during the Rovers’ usual post-game time.

She’s smiling as she says, “I brought you these because I missed you. Now you’ll have to drink more. Oops.”

Challenge accepted.

The JPL players and supporters celebrate a win tonight, but they’re also already focused on the playoffs. Still the underdog in a lot of ways, seeding could very likely see them face the league’s top team, Molson. Launching and landing spacecrafts? Well, that’s part of the daily grind. If they want to stay in the running in their hockey league, they’ll have to dig deep and find their best game.

The Rovers don’t just aim to make it to the final again. This time, they want to come away as the reigning champions. Imagine how many Facebook followers they could gain after doing that.