Gretzky Thriving in an Unlikely Setting

The “zillions of possibilities” in every hockey game, as he calls them, help make Wayne Gretzky so fascinating to watch and difficult to follow. A center who eschews conventional skate-it-up-the-middle strategy, Gretzky regularly surfaces along the sideboards, behind the net or at the edge of the crease. As he likes to say: “I go where the puck is going, not where it was.”

That sort of prescient adaptability has made a most unlikely move now seem perfectly natural. He has elevated a team that always was closer to Mexico than to the Stanley Cup. He has added luster to a franchise that still hasn’t won so much as a division title or a second playoff round. He has created a widespread following for the Los Angeles Kings, whose former owner, Jack Kent Cooke, once reportedly commented on Southern California’s 600,000 Canadian expatriates: “Now I know why they moved out here. They hate hockey.”

“Hockey has caught on here,” Gretzky said after practice one day last week. “People want to see it, they want to watch it. It’s abuzz right now. Everywhere you go, kids are playing roller hockey outside. There’s always groups petitioning to get more rinks built.”

More and more, as Gretzky begins his third year in Los Angeles, the Kings have the look of America’s team in Canada’s game.

Kings’ merchandise outsells that of any other NHL team nationwide. It has sprouted three team-operated memorabilia shops in and around Los Angeles. They had 36 sellouts last season. They drew nearly 26,000 for a preseason game in St. Petersburg last month. Their games are televised regularly in Phoenix and Honolulu, and their 10-station radio network is anchored by a flagship so strong that it can be heard at home by Edmonton Oilers’ owner Peter Pocklington, whose cash-flow crisis prompted The Trade on Aug. 9, 1988.

Three months short of his 30th birthday, Gretzky is encouraged about his team, content with his family and six-bedroom home in Los Angeles, and undaunted that his former team won the Stanley Cup without him last season.

“Their challenge was to win a championship without Wayne Gretzky. My challenge was to help hockey go here and win a championship here,” he said. “I think that I’ve got one of my two.”

But there is a third, one that might be called Gretzky’s greatest challenge: Can Gretzky’s popularity sustain the Kings even after Gretzky is gone? Time and the Kings’ performance will determine whether hockey is a fad or a fixture in the Forum. It is an issue before team management, which is considering the future while trying to figure out how to advance past the Smythe Division playoffs.

It is a question made more pertinent by Gretzky’s physical condition and age. He has withstood a great deal of punishment in his 12 pro seasons. Not the least of which was the cross-check from behind by the Islanders’ Alan Kerr in March. The resulting back injury kept Gretzky out for most of the playoffs. Although he recovered with a summer of situps, he acknowledges the inevitable.

“I hope I can play for a long time, so my kids can come to the rink, watch the games and really understand what’s going on,” said the father of Paulina, 2, and Ty, three months. “But, unfortunately they won’t. By the time they’re 5 or 6, well, that’s five or six more years.”

After that, it is anyone’s guess as to whether Sylvester Stallone and Tony Danza still will have seats right behind the glass, Paula Abdul will show up as guest of a player’s wife, the lead singer from New Kids on the Block will be dining at the owner’s table or thousands of others will be standing and shouting every time the red light goes on and the loudspeakers project a chorus of “I Love L.A.”

It is hard to forget what happened to the can’t-miss soccer interest in New York once Pele left the Cosmos (and after Giorgio Chinaglia temporarily kept the fire burning). To put it in Hollywood terms -- with apologies to longtime Kings fan Jamie Farr, the former Corporal Klinger -- could “M.A.S.H.” have gone on without Hawkeye?

There are mixed opinions on the subject.

“I always had a problem when I was a kid, getting people to come to (Kings) games. But once they came, they were hooked. That’s the reason why I think people will be coming back long after Wayne’s gone,” said Bruce McNall, the Kings’ owner, who paid the Oilers $15 million plus Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas and three first-round draft picks to acquire Gretzky, Marty McSorley and Mike Krushelnyski.

“As long as we’re bringing people in, we’re letting them in on the excitement and the enthusiasm of the game,” McNall said before leaving for Paris, where he watched a horse he co-owns with Gretzky win the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Europe’s richest horse race.

Then again, there is this sentiment about local hockey interest from a Forum employee: “It’s going to degenerate. You know how it is here, people just go with whatever’s hot.”

Bob Miller, the team’s television announcer for the past 17 years, has heard the latter attitude more than once. “Most people are saying once this guy’s gone, that’s going to be it,” he said. “But I like to at least be positive about it and say people are going to at least come out and see what an exciting game it is regardless of whether he’s here or not.”

People who have been around the Kings for any length of time cannot help but have positive feelings. With due respect to forwards Marcel Dionne and Bob Berry, who starred for the Kings in the 1970s, and goaltender Rogie Vachon, who was named The Hockey News player of the year for leading the Kings to a 105-point season in 1974-75, hockey is a whole new ballgame in Los Angeles now.

“We never had any respect in the sports community here until we made the big trade,” said Vachon, beginning his seventh season as Kings’ general manager.

This year, the players were feted by a crowd of 900 at the downtown Biltmore Hotel three days before the start of the season.

In a bow to last season’s franchise-record average attendance of 15,707, the Kings decided to display fans, not Gretzky or a teammate, on the cover of their media guide.

On his part in fitting hockey into many sun-drenched lifestyles, Gretzky said: “I think I’ve helped change some of the habits, but I don’t think I’ve been totally responsible for that. I think the management and ownership of the organization have been very responsible.”

Who’s he kidding?

“He is the Babe Ruth of his time. The impact he had on Edmonton was dramatic and the impact he’s had on Los Angeles is dramatic,” said Paul Staudohar, professor of business administration at California State University, Hayward, who has published two books on economics and sport. “I really can’t think of a player who has had that much of an impact. Of course, Babe Ruth did when he went to the Yankees from Boston.”

And the Kings’ outlook?

Gretzky insists his team shows long-term promise. “They’re hitting where they have to hit: the young people. Those are the ones who are coming to the games and they’re eventually going to bring their kids to the games,” he said.

“I think this franchise is going to be very solid and successful for years to come,” said a player renowned for his foresight.