FBN anchors Liz Claman & David Asman with Cmsr. Gary Bettman of the NHL and the FBN crew on "After the Bell" May 9
“I have my Kings purple on,” she told TVNewser shortly before going on the air this afternoon.
Claman grew up in Southern California with a Canadian father who loved hockey. When Los Angeles got an NHL franchise in 1967, he bought season tickets for the family.
“That became our childhood,” she said. “School nights didn’t matter. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Mondays, whenever there was a game, my dad was bundling us all up and throwing us in the station wagon — yes, we had a station wagon — and driving us to Inglewood, California.”
Fast forward to 2012. The Kings are playing for their first Stanley Cup since the 1992-93 season (they lost to the Montreal Canadiens in five games) against the New Jersey Devils. Claman lives in
New Jersey with her husband, CNN executive producer Jeff Kepnes, who is a Boston Bruins fan and their kids, who’ve been rooting for the Devils during the playoffs.
“I bought tickets [to a Devils-Kings playoff game], and on the New Jersey Turnpike my husband decides he’s going to be a Devils fan for the night,” she said. “So I started making friends with all the Kings fans. People thought I was insane.”
For Claman, who has been with Fox Business since launch in 2007, the eighth-seeded Kings were in the familiar role of underdogs during the playoffs.
“The Kings were the bad news bears for a long time, but [at FBN] we’re already starting to see little pockets of resistance fall, like Lou Dobbs in primetime,” she said. “I couldn’t be happier.” At FBN, and with her Stanley Cup champion LA Kings.