On Monday, fans of both the Vancouver Canucks and New Jersey Devils were trolled hard by a Los Angeles Kings fan with a wicked sense of humor. The fan took out ads in the classifieds of both New Jersey's Star-Ledger and Vancouver's Province newspapers, coyly wishing the Canucks and Devils "better luck next year."

On Thursday, a comeback surfaced. New Jersey-based website The Hockey Network took out an ad in the L.A. Times with a rebuttal:

Ah, revenge.

It's good to see the trolls of the world moving backwards through social media as the rest of the world moves forward. Expect this fight to hit the telegram circuit any day now.

Said Hockey Network staffer George on the website's forums:

For all you Kings fans that are going to complain.... yes I am a Devils fan, and yes The Hockey Network is based in New Jersey. But that really wasn't the reasoning behind, I just thought it would be funny, and when we polled our 30,000 Facebook fans, they agreed by a wide margin. And before you get too upset, it's just a joke, calm down. I have nothing but respect for the Kings, they had an amazing run this year and deserved the cup, and the fans deserved the cup too - I know there are a lot of die-hards out there. And actually the guy who helped make TheHockeyNetwork.com, Tim, is a Kings fan and lives in LA!

One thought in closing: Thank goodness this was a Devils fan and not a Canucks fan, because Vancouver is sitting on 41 nutless years and if it doesn't find one within the next four, it'll be the laughingstock of blind squirrels everywhere.

s/t to Bridget Womelduff and Thom Drance.

