Bursting With King-Size Fervor : North Hills: Laid back in L.A.? Pandemonium seizes the team’s long-suffering fans as the Stanley Cup finals unfold.

It may be the most unlikely spot in which to celebrate hockey in June.

This is North Hills in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, with palm trees swaying in the sweet summer breeze. The land of surfboards, not hockey pucks. Not a Zamboni in sight.

But puleese--do not tell that to the 300 King fans who showed up Thursday at the Iceoplex--where the Kings practice when they’re home--to watch their heroes lose a 3-2 battle in overtime to the Montreal Canadiens in the second game of the Stanley Cup finals.

Despite the loss, this was hockey pandemonium, proving you do not have to live in a decaying Northeastern core city with weekly blizzards to blow your cool over the Stanley Cup.

In a hockey-stick-shaped bar that overlooks the Kings’ practice rink, the Rabid Ones showed up in King jerseys and backwards King hats, brandishing miniature King-embossed hockey sticks, and displaying King emblems painted onto fingernails, poster boards and foreheads.

There were new King fans, little girls who wobbled around in their razor-sharp figure skates. And there were old fans as well, fans who clung to the King faith through their darkest years.

And these Los Angeles sports fans do not leave before the third period, differing from their seventh-inning-stretch-deserting baseball counterparts.

Like lunatics loosed from some hockey asylum, they cheered, screamed, stamped their feet, ooohed and aaahed, high-fived, cried tears and gnawed their nails. They wore shirts that said “Warning: Radical Kings Fan from L.A.” They loosed a thunderous roar every time Montreal missed or a Canadien got clobbered.

“This place is for die-hards,” said redheaded actor Scott Nell, a master of the indisputable.

Three hours before face-off, wild-eyed fans began arriving at Brandon’s Restaurant and Sports Bar, saving seats, offering each other game strategies, gazing out the plexiglass window as the pee-wee and tyke leaguers slapped the puck around on the rink outside.

Once the game got under way, these men turned into T-shirted cheerleaders, albeit round-bellied ones. All game long, their faces puckered with determination.

“I love the art and aggression of this game,” Nell said. “But at playoff time, these guys really play serious hockey. They’re ready to kill each other but they can’t take a chance on a penalty. You can see the frustration and anger in their eyes. They want to lash out but they can’t.”

Sort of how King fans felt at the end of the first period with the Canadiens ahead, 1-0. A hush dropped over the place faster than a puck during face-off, until one excited fan ran through the bar with a sign scrawled seconds before that read “Go, Kings, Go.”

As a King defenseman delivered a vicious check on a Montreal forward, 14-year-old Becky Greenzweight cooed with pleasure. “It’s violent,” she said. “But that’s the way I like it.”

During Game 1 of the finals, die-hards made a waiter tear off his Montreal jersey. As on the rink, there have been fights. When a Toronto fan held up a sign, someone ripped it from his hands and paraded it around the bar, to the delight of the crowd.

But this is Los Angeles. Almost everyone here is from someplace else, people who were born and raised as fans of the Sabres, Red Wings or Blues. This recent rage of King-mania is definitely something new.

And that bugs Marty Alpert. Along with his wife, Eileen, he’s has been a King fan for more than 26 years, back to the days when the team wore purple and gold.

Frankly, the recent personality parade at King games turns his stomach. Marty and his boys call them winner-followers. Bandwagoners.

Like, why do Goldie Hawn and Ronald Reagan suddenly start showing up at hockey games? Like, why do the rookies ask such D-U-M-B questions: “What’s icing?” “What’s offsides?” and “Why do they have all those cute little circles on the rink?”

These are people who mispronounce Zamboni like that river in Africa. They’re just a bunch of schoolteachers who can’t appreciate the bloody grace and violence of the sport, the boys say.

Real fans don’t go gaga over Gretzky’s good looks. They know that the best plays often take place away from the puck. And in this fast-paced sport, they say, you can’t even take time to dash to the bathroom.

“We loyal ones have been around for so many years and tasted nothing but defeat,” said fan Mark Hahn.

“If the Kings win the cup, they should have a parade in downtown L. A. and only invite people who have been fans for at least 10 years. It should be our parade too.”

Bianca (Stanley Cup) Hutchinson says she’s enjoying the playoff ride as long as it lasts. The 30-year-old casting director likes hockey because it’s easy to understand, not complicated like football.

And call her superstitious, but she has her own way of rallying her Kings when they get behind: She licks lollipops.

“I have witnesses,” she said. The Kings start to lose, she goes to work on the lollipop “and--boom!--they come back to win. Chocolate ones work the best.”

Early in the third period, when the Kings scored to go ahead, 2-1, the place went wild and Hutchinson put her lollipop away.

“Crazy,” said waitress Lisa Crown. “I couldn’t hear myself think.”

But the euphoria did not last. The Canadiens tied the score with 1:12 left in regulation and scored the winning goal 57 seconds into overtime.

“The place was dead, like a thud,” said Mike Mangione, a man with tree-stump-sized arms who has been playing hockey for 48 years.

“But we’ll be back.”

* GAME COVERAGE: C1