Next Step for Disney: Wish Upon Some Stars : Hockey: With the arena lease signed, attention will turn to assembling a staff and scouting talent for upcoming season.

Walt Disney Co. officials can finally get a decent night’s sleep now that their marathon negotiation sessions are over and they’ve got an arena lease, enabling their new hockey team to begin play in the NHL this October.

But the work load won’t ease up much in coming weeks, when important decisions must be made regarding the formation of the team--moves that will determine how competitive Anaheim will be in its inaugural season.

“They’re going to have an awfully busy staff,” said Mike Keenan, former Chicago Blackhawk general manager and coach who is a candidate for both positions in Anaheim. “They’ll have to work virtually every day until this season’s over, because they’re running out of time.”

Like any professional hockey franchise, Anaheim’s front office, which is expected to be headed by President Tony Tavares, will have a business side, with employees in areas such as marketing, ticket sales, advertising, public relations, community relations and accounting, and a hockey side, which will include high-ranking executives such as a team vice presidents, a general manager and the coaching, scouting and training staffs.

Unlike most professional hockey franchises, Disney’s will have only a few months to get its staff in place.

“Certainly, with every day that goes by, it gets tougher and tougher,” said Jim Devellano, senior vice president of the Detroit Red Wings. “It requires a lot of work and a lot of people. But people who have the kind of money Disney and Blockbuster (which owns Miami’s expansion franchise) have can do anything.”

Most NHL executives believe Disney, with its vast array of resources and experience in the entertainment industry, will have few problems handling the business side. But the hockey side could pose a considerable challenge.

The NHL regular season ends in mid-April, and the Canadian junior, U.S. college and European seasons are winding down, leaving Anaheim precious little time for scouting for the NHL expansion and amateur drafts.

Anaheim’s first priority will be to hire a general manager, who would then put together a scouting staff--perhaps not a complete one, but one with at least two or three people who can oversee the June expansion and amateur drafts in Quebec City. The team could wait until after the drafts to hire a coach.

The key for Anaheim’s first drafts is hiring the right people to run them--ideally, someone who has scouted the NHL this season, someone with a vast knowledge of the Canadian junior leagues, someone familiar with U.S. minor league and college players and someone with knowledge of European players.

“The hockey side is not a problem,” said Jack Ferreira, a Montreal Canadien scout and an Anaheim GM candidate. “As far as the expansion draft--that’s where you’ll get most of your players--I could do that next week. I know I could hire two or three guys who could handle the amateur draft. As long as you have the right people, you can get it done.”

Some of the “right” people might not be available, though. Most contracts won’t allow front-office personnel to switch teams during the season unless the move includes a promotion. Ferreira, for instance, has a clause in his contract that allows him to leave for a general manager job.

But some teams might not like the idea of releasing a scout to one of the expansion teams before the drafts.

“Frankly, if someone came to us and said they wanted to hire a guy who’s been scouting all year for us, even if it meant a promotion, I’d have a hard time with that,” said Dean Lombardi, vice president in charge of hockey operations for the San Jose Sharks.

“It would bother me to have someone sitting beside me at the draft table, with a list he made for your people, picking ahead of me.”

Several NHL executives said there’s an unwritten rule in the league that when someone can advance substantially in their job, you don’t hold them back.

“When you’re talking about a director of scouting becoming a GM, and he’s going to increase his salary five-fold, it’s hard to turn that down,” Devellano said. “It’s a tough situation, because they’re taking your lists, which cost you a lot of money to put together, and using them for another club.

“Obviously, they’d have to get permission to hire someone like that away, but the new teams are also partners in the league, and you can’t expect them to start with a bunch of rookies. You just hope it isn’t you that gets hit.”

Judging from its candidate pool, Anaheim might be able to avoid such problems hiring a general manager. In addition to Ferreira and Keenan, the other prominent GM candidates are Bob McCammon, former Philadelphia Flyers and Vancouver Canucks coach who is presently the president, general manager and coach of the Western Hockey League’s Tri-City (Wash.) Americans, and Sherry Bassin, part-owner of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds of the Ontario Hockey League.

Ferreira and Keenan would have NHL expertise; McCammon and Bassin would have extensive knowledge of the Canadian junior and U.S. minor leagues. In addition to a GM role, these candidates might also be considered for other positions, such as director of player personnel and director of scouting.

“I think Anaheim could be very competitive in the NHL within three years if they do it right,” McCammon said. “I think you can be competitive out of the gate--Tampa Bay proved that--but in three years, they could be a legitimate playoff team.”

Anaheim will benefit from liberal expansion draft guidelines, which allow current NHL teams to protect only one goalie, and an amateur draft that hockey experts are calling one of the deepest and most talented in years.

Anaheim is assured of getting one of the top five amateurs in the world, most likely Alexandre Daigle, a center from Quebec; Chris Pronger, a defenseman from Ontario, Canada; Chris Gratton, a forward from Ontario; Viktor Kozlov, a left-winger from Russia, or Rob Niedermayer, a center from Alberta.

“If you asked me if I’d rather have a year head start to prepare like we did or have the access to the players they’ll have access to, I’d take their situation,” said Lombardi, whose Sharks are in their second NHL season.

“They’re probably in a better position than we were, even though we had more time to look at players. The ones who jumped out at us weren’t available. They’ll have access to better players.”

* HOCKEY GETS GO-AHEAD

Anaheim City Council vote allows Disney team to begin play in October. A1