Kings fan wins non-existent playoff tickets, awarded season seats instead

A California-based insurance company was so sure the Los Angeles Kings would make the playoffs again, it held a contest offering a pair of tickets to every Kings home playoff game as the grand prize.

A woman named Anita Russell won the tickets in an on-ice contest last Saturday, when Los Angeles was sitting in a wild-card spot. But the Kings lost their next three games, eliminating any possibility of postseason hockey at Staples Center.

Despite the Kings' collapse, Russell will not end up empty-handed. Mercury Insurance, who organized the contest, arranged a contingency prize: a pair of upper-bowl season seats for 2015-16.

"We had a backup plan. We just never seriously thought that we’d need to use it," Shane Smith, a marketing executive involved with the contest, told Rich Hammond of the Orange County Register.

Mercury values the season tickets at $1,397.50, which is nearly $2,000 lower than the theoretical value of playoff tickets to 16 home games. However, the season tickets are for 41 guaranteed games, while the playoff prize could have been as little as two games if the Kings had qualified only to be eliminated in the opening round.

The Kings were expected to make the playoffs for a sixth straight season after winning the Stanley Cup twice in three years.