Ready to Go. Our Line Starts.

That's right, the Lounge has fired up Republica's "Ready to Go," one of the tunes the Kings of the late 1990s skated to during warmups before yet another crushing loss at the Great Western Forum.

Ah, those Inglewood nights, the mix of folks in Warren Rychel and Marty McSorley sweaters hoisting adult beverages in the vast parking lots at the neighboring Hollywood Park horse track. The Kings fans in that lot were definitely ready to settle some issues.

And tonight there definitely are some issues in the Lounge as we await the Rangers' visit to Winnipeg. The Maple Leafs are getting sticks up in the faces of the Flyers; stitches aplenty at the Wells Fargo Center. The Canadiens look like mere mortals, perhaps even worse, and the Panthers have evened things up after one period.

Any way you look at it tonight, the table is full, and I mean full even after I clear the main table of all the fixings for the Lounge's chicken tacos. And I do make some pretty fine tacos.

If I weren't here at the Lounge, I would be at the Flying Puck on Seventh Avenue and 30th Street, or at Five Guys on 34th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. Rangers fans will have to make these venues two points of interest. Another would be Jimmy's Burger Shack on 31st Avenue just across from MSG near Eighth Avenue. If you go there, get the No. 9. Burger, bacon, fried egg, cheese. Goes down like candy.

OK, enough with the preliminaries and naked plugs. Hungry? Ready for hockey?

Good. You've come to the right place.