Gulls’ Whitney Just Kidding Around En Route to NHL : Hockey: Teen-age scorer is learning the game and getting ready to graduate to the San Jose Sharks.

The scene is a suburban amusement center in Phoenix. Several members of the San Diego Gulls, led by teen-age center Ray Whitney, have strapped on their seat belts and are revving their engines for a go-kart ride.

The signs are clearly visible: “No bumping or reckless driving.” But Whitney can’t control his urge to cause mischief.

He’s a 19-year-old rebel without a cause. He thinks he’s Richard Petty.

He jams on the gas pedal, screeches around the first turn, cuts to the inside and rams teammate Robbie Nichols to the outside. Nichols’ go-kart fishtails. Whitney lets out a taunting laugh and bangs Nichols again. Nichols scrambles as his kart begins to spin out.

Whitney hoots and speeds away, but not very far. The “go-kart police,” peach-fuzzed, pimply-faced kids probably his age, have blown the whistle on Whitney.

They issue him a warning, not knowing that this spiteful kid will soon be motoring off to a career in the NHL.

His Gulls teammates, who chaperone Whitney on these road-trip escapades, make sure he knows it is OK to be what he is: a teen-ager.

“He likes to be young now and then,” said Nichols, 27, veteran winger, prankster, fun lover. “And on the road, he does bring out the little kid in us.”

Before the night is over, Nichols and the others join “The Kid,” as they call him, in a round of miniature golf, some video games and more shenanigans--bumper boats.

Then it’s time to get back to the hotel before curfew. There’s a crucial hockey game to play the next night against the Phoenix Roadrunners.

“I like to have fun; life’s too short not to,” said Whitney, the youngest player in the IHL. “I don’t worry about much. I’m not interested in politics. I don’t care who’s running the world.”

With time running out on the 1991-92 season, the Gulls are in a battle with Peoria for second place in the West Division and home-ice advantage in the playoffs.

The stakes might be higher for his teammates than they are for Whitney, but not because he’s a kid who would only seem to care about his good time. Whitney was the first player chosen in the second round of the NHL entry draft last June. It doesn’t matter how the Gulls fare in the playoffs, he’s headed for the big show.

Instead of making the leap from junior hockey to the NHL this season, he opted for another year of experience in the IHL. But he has signed an agreement to join the San Jose Sharks when this season is finished.

Whitney, who turns 20 on May 8, has had to mature fast. His young hockey career has been like a carousel.

While most American boys his age were suffering from senioritis last year, Whitney was spending his third year away from his home in Fort Saskatchewan, Canada, leading the Spokane (Wash.) Chiefs to the Memorial Cup, which goes to the best team in junior hockey.

“I had to grow up a lot earlier than I had planned,” Whitney confessed. “There’s nobody to hold my hand anymore. I went from hanging around guys my age to being around guys 12, 13 years older than me who have families and are concerned about making a living.

“I’ve needed help from those guys. I suppose if I was a normal 19-year-old, I wouldn’t fear money, I wouldn’t fear the world. I wouldn’t fear anything. This is serious business and I want to be in the NHL next year.”

He scored 67 goals and racked up 185 points in 72 games last year at Spokane. He capped three seasons in which he became the Chiefs’ all-time goals and assists leader (141 and 207). He was named Western Hockey League player of the year.

Many thought he was ready for the NHL. There were also doubters, who pointed out his size (5 feet 10, 170 pounds), his defensive abilities and toughness.

Whitney never came close to signing with the Sharks. After a brief stops with Cologne of the German Hockey League’s first division and the Canadian Olympic team, Whitney signed as a free agent with the Gulls on Nov. 15.

Here, the raw-boned boy has proven his NHL stock is bona fide.

He has 33 goals and 45 assists in 57 games. He has five game-winning goals, and the Gulls have a 21-4-2 record when Whitney scores.

And with two goals and three assists in the IHL All-Star game in Atlanta Feb. 2, Whitney was named the game’s most valuable player. Silenced were opponents who used to bait him because of his youth.

Whitney has learned how to maneuver quite well around adults. Just ask Fort Wayne’s Bruce Boudreau, the oldest player in the league at 36. Boudreau, defending one-on-one against Whitney, watched the kid slip the puck between his legs, skate around him and score one of the more spectacular of his 33 goals.

“He’s more than I ever expected,” said Don Waddell, Gulls coach and general manager. “I was concerned with his age, I was concerned with playing him in a back-up role (centering the Gulls’ No. 2 scoring line) and how he would adjust to not being the star for the first time.

“It’s a huge jump from junior to the IHL; a lot greater than anyone can imagine. He’s really adjusted well and this was the best move of his career.”

Whitney left home to play for Spokane when he was 16. But playing with teammates his age for three years and enjoying success in the WHL for two years weren’t nearly the experience he has had since June. His nine-month pro career has been marked by debate and controversy.

The Sharks couldn’t guarantee Whitney would make the club, so Whitney and his agent, Mike Barnett, never negotiated with San Jose. He accepted a contract worth $700,000 in U.S. currency with Cologne in July.

Two months later, he left Cologne, complaining not only that he wasn’t getting paid regularly but he didn’t like the atmosphere. Renewed negotiations with the Sharks in September got nowhere, so Whitney tried out for the Canadian Olympic team. He was cut.

He was also running out of options. The NHL signing deadline, Oct. 3, had passed by then. An NHL rule prohibited him from playing for any San Jose minor-league affiliate until he was 20. With the Sharks owning his rights, he couldn’t claim free agency. Whitney--hoping to avoid a return to Spokane--asked Barnett to find a loophole. Barnett, who also represents Wayne Gretzky and several other NHL players, found a clause that allowed Whitney to play for the Gulls, an unaffiliated team.

Whitney paid immediate dividends for the Gulls, making the all-star team despite being in the league less than two months. By January, rumors surfaced that he might be traded to the Kansas City Blades, San Jose’s IHL affiliate. The response from Waddell: “Over my dead body.”

Whitney’s 78 points in 57 games have been better than the Blades’ top two scorers--Gary Emmons (79 points, 75 games) and Peter Lappin (55, 73)--while centering the No. 2 line and backing up on the power play.

“He’s come a long way,” said Keith Gretzky, who welcomed Whitney to live with his family here and has aided the teen-ager’s growth, on and off the ice. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders. He knows where he wants to go and he takes nothing for granted.”

Whitney describes himself as “unflappable;” others suggest he is too cocky and too flashy on the ice. But he doesn’t show any brashness when he considers the role fate played in separating he and his best friend, Pat Falloon.

Falloon, 18, Whitney’s teammate at Spokane for three years, was the second overall pick behind Eric Lindros in the NHL draft--taken by the Sharks. Falloon, an inch taller and 20 pounds heavier, scored 47 fewer points than Whitney last season.

It seemed too good to be true that Falloon and Whitney--who bonded so well as 16-year-olds--were drafted by the same team and had the chance to skate together as NHL rookies. It was.

“I’m a little biased about it, but I think Ray’s ready now,” Falloon said shortly after Whitney signed with the Gulls. “He handles the puck so well. He makes moves one-on-one that you just want to see over and over on tape. It seems like he has eyes in the back of his head.

“For sure, it would have been nice for him to be here,” said Falloon, the Sharks’ top scorer this season (22 goals, 28 assists through 73 games). “But neither one of us has said anything about it to the other. It doesn’t have to be said.

“We hung around together, did anything other 16- (and) 17-year-olds do . . . go to the movies, go out and look for girls.”

Back home, Whitney’s father, Floyd, was suffering growing pains of his own.

Having raised his oldest son to be exactly what he wanted, Floyd couldn’t stand to be separated from Ray.

An Edmonton policeman for 16 years and the Edmonton Oilers’ practice goalie for 12 years, Floyd did everything he could to nurture Ray. A former hockey player who dropped out of a junior league at 18 to marry Ray’s mother, Wendy, Floyd put Ray on the ice at age 4 and later got him a job as the Oilers’ stick boy.

But when Ray left for Spokane, Floyd started taking nine-hour drives to his games. He has already made two trips to San Diego and plans a third.

“It’s very hard for me; I have a little trouble backing off,” said Floyd. “I’m learning to back off. Before, we were all buddy-buddy, and he listened to every word I said. He gets mad at me now.

“He’s getting independent; he’s been away from home for four years. I was a daddy at 19. So I really tell him, ‘You listen to me.’ ”

Said Ray: “The tough thing is he’s still young (38) and he can do everything I can do. He can run a mile, he can go downhill skiing, we golf together. We’d make a competition out of whatever we’d do.

“When I left, it left a hole there for him. It’s just him and momma now. That’s changed his life.”

Ray came home from Spokane one year with a tattoo. During his first visit to San Diego, Floyd discovered Ray was sharing an apartment with his hometown girlfriend.

“I didn’t like that all that much,” Floyd said. “He sent her home.”

“My mom and dad get pretty uptight about things in my life that I don’t even see,” Ray said. “Stuff like insurance and speeding tickets. I don’t show much concern about it, but I’m trying to be more aware of everything.

“It’s tough. You need your parents. You need loving; you need caring.”