Is Melrose the Alarm Clock?

My first instinct upon learning that Barry Melrose would be leaving the Adirondack Red Wings to coach the Los Angeles Kings was to wonder why the guy was willing to accept a demotion.

Kidding aside, it could not have escaped everybody’s attention Thursday that an ambitious young man who has never coached one minute in the NHL made repeated well-intended references to the Kings’ having done quite a good job of “selling” him on the idea of becoming their coach.

They had to persuade a minor league hockey coach to come coach Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri and Paul Coffey.

Funny things are happening in the Forum, where the two principal tenants, the Lakers and Kings, now answer to two guys who have never been head coaches in the NBA, NHL or even at a major college.

Yet these are funny times for miles and miles in every direction, what with no professional team in telescopic range--Angels, Dodgers, Padres, Chargers, Raiders, Rams, Clippers, Lakers or Kings--even remotely seeming on the verge of a championship.

I do not envy Barry Melrose or Randy Pfund, except maybe for their Beverly Hills 90210 looks.

They must huddle with men wearing Stanley Cup and NBA championship diamond rings on their fingers and give them orders.

At least Pfund has been part of the Laker pfamily. Melrose is coming from hockey nowhere, with limited references.

His determination is admirable.

“I’m going to be the Kings’ coach who doesn’t get fired,” Melrose said.

Self-confidence is something he clearly values. Melrose is an avid reader of self-improvement literature. One person he particularly would like to meet is Anthony Robbins, the “Awaken the Giant Within” lecturer, author and guru.

Frankly, having seen the size of Tony Robbins on TV, I think the first thing Barry Melrose should discuss with him is becoming a King defenseman.

Possibly it is a subconscious acknowledgment of the team’s good-glove, no-hit reputation that the new management infrastructure of the Kings, introduced Thursday, is dominated by two defensemen, Nick Beverley and Melrose, and a goalie, Rogie Vachon. Tough men for tough times. And although he never was a player, nobody who has worked with Roy Mlakar, the team’s new president, has ever described him as a wimp.

Beverley was once Bobby Orr’s linemate in junior hockey, and Melrose was distinctly un-Gretzky-like in an NHL career in which he played 11 years and scored 10 goals.

The new general manager, Beverley appears to be a plain-talker whose first-day-on-the-job comments included: “I think it is extremely important for our players to understand that we are not at all satisfied with the results we’ve gotten so far.”

If either Mlakar or Beverley kick some black-and-silver booty, this should work hand in hand in a good-cop, bad-cop sort of way, with owner Bruce McNall remaining the team’s ever-present dispenser of faith, hope and charity.

McNall and Vachon theoretically have sent themselves to the upper-management penalty box, not for misconduct but more for misjudgment, forced to concede finally that their many moves and maneuvers made the Kings more popular but not the least bit more successful. So go the best-laid plans of ice and men.

You know something is rotten when a California team run by one of sport’s most generous executives and populated by some of the sport’s most distinguished players no longer has the sport’s most accomplished coaches beating down their door. When a man (Pat Burns) would rather coach the Toronto Maple Leafs than the Kings and doesn’t even care to interview, you know the job has lost some of its luster.

Melrose had to be talked into it. He was going to stay in Glens Falls, N.Y., coaching Detroit’s minor leaguers, until the Kings offered him the most money ever paid a rookie NHL coach.

A pleasant enough fellow who was eager to put the best face on things, Melrose said his main ambition upon launching a coaching career in 1987 was to be running an NHL team within five years, and that New York and Los Angeles were the two best places to be.

It is certainly a nice thing to say, although loyal followers of the Rangers and Kings must sometimes think of those cities as places where hockey coaches go to die.

Maybe when you hail from Saskatchewan, as Melrose does, and have spent the last 16 years never working south of Michigan or west of Manitoba, the idea of moving to California is a daunting one, no matter who plays there.

“The city scares me a bit,” Melrose admitted. “My wife and children are a little scared right now.”

Before leaving home, in fact, when informed that his father had received a four-year contract, one of Melrose’s young sons said: “Good. That means we’ll be back here in four years.”

Maybe. Maybe not.

Depends if Dad awakens the giant.