KING OF THE CROWD : Luc Robitaille Is Sugar, Spice and Everything Ice

A women’s group recently named him one of the 10 most watchable men in the English-speaking world. He is represented by the William Morris Agency and dates an actress.

And, though he plays for a team that ranks near the bottom of the National Hockey League in the standings and in attendance, he is the people’s choice to start at left wing for the Campbell Conference tonight in the NHL All-Star game.

If Luc Robitaille, the Kings’ fresh-faced Francophone from Montreal hasn’t exactly taken Hollywood by storm, he at least has kicked up a strong tail wind.

A week shy of his 22nd birthday, last season’s NHL rookie of the year is already one of the league’s most popular players.

Only three players from the Campbell Conference--Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri and Grant Fuhr of the Stanley Cup champion Edmonton Oilers--had more support from fans in voting for the All-Star game.

A fourth Oiler, Glenn Anderson, finished some 66,000 votes behind Robitaille at left wing.

“He certainly has replaced Marcel Dionne as the most noted King,” said Marvin Dauer, a personal manager who represents both Dionne and Robitaille.

All this has happened pretty quickly for Robitaille, who wasn’t chosen by the Kings until the ninth round of the 1984 draft.

Two years ago, he still played in a junior league in Hull, Canada, having been all but ignored in his first two trips to the Kings’ training camp.

Thinking back to his days in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, Robitaille said: “I’d be sitting on the bus looking at a magazine and the guys would tease me. They’d point to a picture and say, ‘You’re going to see Heather Locklear and all those people.’ And last year, I was here in L.A. and it didn’t even seem real.

“Even now, I drive through Beverly Hills and look around and I think it’s amazing that I’m here.”

That genuine sense of wonderment and excitement is part of Robitaille’s appeal, which seems to be growing rapidly. He hasn’t met Locklear, but he dates actress Nancy McKeon, who plays the role of Jo Polniacek in the TV sitcom, “The Facts of Life.”

Some day, he may even star opposite McKeon. Or Locklear.

Robitaille as Robocop?

Because of his good looks, an endearing French accent and his affability, he’s being pushed in that direction.

“He’s a leading man, hero type,” said actor Fred Holliday, who worked with Robitaille for about six weeks last spring, mostly on improving Robitaille’s English.

Said Rick Bradley, a commercial agent for William Morris, a well-known talent agency: “He’s got a boyish charm to him. I like the fact that he’s young and talented and yet he’s very reserved. He’s not arrogant and cocky, like some other athletes who have enjoyed success at a young age.”

Rogers and Cowan, Inc., a public relations firm hired last summer by the Kings, has not dallied in promoting Robitaille.

The firm recently prepared a portfolio of Robitaille for a national fashion magazine that is planning a photo spread on athletes. It also pitched him to Man Watchers, Inc., an organization devoted to the study of the male physique.

The group recently named Robitaille as one of the 10 most watchable men in the English-speaking world, saying the young French-Canadian “combines a charming shyness with good looks that would score a goal in any woman’s heart.”

Others named included John F. Kennedy Jr., quarterback John Elway of the Denver Broncos and TV news anchorman Peter Jennings.

How did Robitaille find himself in such high-powered company?

“His looks are terrific,” explained Suzy Mallery, president and founder of Man Watchers. “We pick people who are an all-around package, basically. In other words, the men that we believe are men who accomplish things, who talk, who communicate, who have everything we like.

“But he also happens to be a fantastically good-looking man. He’s got the kind of looks, I think, that could be model material or actor material.”

Robitaille, slightly embarrassed, laughed recently when Mallery’s comments were read to him.

“Oooooooh, that’s hot stuff,” he said. “I’ve got to give her some money for that.”

Others, though, have said much the same thing.

“If the team won more, I think we’d be getting major endorsements for him,” Bradley said. “I still think he’s going to be a hot commodity.”

None of this seems to have gone to Robitaille’s head.

His coaches often talk of his tremendous work ethic in overcoming his skating deficiencies, which were said to be many. He worked with a power-skating instructor, Laura Stamm, and improved to the point that last season he scored 45 goals. Only Mike Bossy of the New York Islanders ever scored more as a rookie.

And, though he is the Kings’ No. 2 scorer this season with 70 points, he said he will continue to work with Stamm.

Holliday, who said he has appeared in more than 600 television commercials, said Robitaille brought the same type of work habits to an eight-week class taught by Holliday last spring.

Dauer, believing that Robitaille could capitalize on being the Kings’ first winner of the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie, enrolled Robitaille in the course, which Holliday calls “Commercial Actors Success Training.”

“Luc is one of the few amateurs I’ve worked with, and he wound up being kind of the class hero because of his improvement,” Holliday said. “He has a willingness to look bad, which is tough for a guy in his position. He has a sweet, sort of pixie personality and he has no ego.”

Said Bradley, the William Morris agent: “Even though he’s not American, he’s an All-American kid, if that makes any sense.”

Despite Robitaille’s appeal--groupies are said to flock to him after games--he said he hasn’t noticed a drastic change in the way he is perceived.

Still, he said, “I meet a lot more people. I don’t know if they’re really my friends, but more people talk to me.”

Robitaille, though, doesn’t seem to be much of a womanizer.

Last summer, he ended his one-year relationship with Martine Ste. Clair, a Montreal-based, French-speaking pop singer. Although he is reluctant to talk about it, he has dated McKeon for several months.

“Luc takes the game very seriously,” said his agent, Ron Salcer. “He has fun, and he’s a happy-go-lucky kid, but hockey is the most important thing to him. Everything else is secondary.”

But it’s also enjoyable. A second-year player in, say, Winnipeg, wouldn’t draw the same kind of attention. He also wouldn’t drive a convertible in the winter or live in a condominium in Marina del Rey, as does Robitaille.

He also wouldn’t be fielding offers from Hollywood.

Awaiting Robitaille this summer, Dauer said, are roles in a feature film and a television series.

“Everybody tells me it must be hard to play hockey in Los Angeles and that I probably wish I was in Montreal, or any other big hockey city,” Robitaille said. “I used to think the same thing before I got here. But now that I’m here, I wouldn’t want to play any place else.”