Taylor Swift’s Reputation had this whole thing where the old/nice Taylor was killed off by a new/mean Taylor, and though her follow-up Lover is fully back on the nice train, it seems like the mean version of Taylor Swift is still out there, doing mean Taylor Swift stuff. Weirdly, the mean stuff this time around involves fucking things up for the Los Angeles Kings hockey team and not, like, breaking the hearts of nice guys or whatever, but this is still clearly the work of mean Taylor Swift—well, supposedly.
This comes from Deadline, which says the Kings have fully embraced a trend of fan-led superstition by agreeing to cover up a banner at the Staples Center honoring Swift’s 16th sold-out concert at the venue after somehow coming to the conclusion that the banner was to blame for the team’s ugly losing streak. The Kings won the Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014, but their fortunes have declined so much since then that Deadline says the team had the second-worst record in the entire NHL last season. After what we’re going to assume was a somewhat tongue-in-cheek fan campaign, the Kings have decided to cover up the banner whenever they play at home at the Staples Center this season, and—as pointed out by the official Twitter account of Kings mascot Bailey—they are now undefeated in home games since banishing the dark spirit of Taylor Swift.
Of course, that itself is a joke, since the team has only played one game at home this season, but we’re not about to try and introduce actual facts to sports superstitions. Interestingly (as pointed out by the LA Times), the Los Angeles Clippers also cover up Swift’s banner, though that probably has more to do with the fact that it’s located near some Lakers’ banners than anything to do with Taylor Swift (and covering it up hasn’t done anything to help their record anyway).