Anaheim Ducks vs. Toronto Maple Leafs

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Toronto coming to town is not really a home game, and everybody in the building knows it before the anthem finishes. Leafs supporters are the most displaced fanbase in hockey and Southern California is quietly full of them — Canadians who moved for work, for weather, for a person — and they surface for this one night a year, wearing jerseys with names on the back from three decades of near-misses. Expect a lower bowl that is a third blue, a roar on the opening faceoff that is not for the home team, and the specific energy of a crowd arguing with itself for three full periods. For a Ducks fan that is its own entertainment, and the home support gets louder precisely because it has to. For anyone who grew up somewhere cold it is closer to a reunion with several thousand strangers who sound like home. Seven o'clock at Honda Center, Tuesday, December 29.