Whoa, Nellie! Hockey Mania in L.A.?

If you happened to grow up in Southern California in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, if you were an impressionable child in the innocent age of TV, if you remember the era before George Putnam was banished to radio and Hal Fishman joined the Toupe Club for Men, there’s a good chance you will remember this phrase:

“Whoa, Nellie!”

To a young boy glued to a black-and-white TV in a Santa Ana living room circa 1963, Dick Lane was the greatest sportscaster of them all, an oracle of truth. Dick Enberg’s “Oh, my!” was mashed potatoes next to the top sirloin of Dick Lane’s “Whoa, Nellie!”

I use term “sportscaster” loosely, for perhaps you remember that Dick Lane was the voice of professional wrestling. Whenever Bobo Brazil delivered his patented “cocoa butt,” whenever Pedro Morales executed a figure-4 leg lock, whenever Freddy Blassie literally chewed on the rivals he liked to call “pencil-neck geeks,” Dick Lane was on the job, ably describing these epic struggles between Good and Evil.

And if you liked pro wrestling--and I loved it--then you probably liked Roller Derby too. Before I fell hard for the Dodgers of Koufax and Drysdale, Maury Wills and Sweet Lou Johnson, I cheered on the L.A. Thunderbirds of Ralphie Valaderas and Big Danny Riley, Terri Lynch and Judy Sewynski. These spellings, sad to say, are approximations. Roller Derby never got much press, except when Raquel Welch made “Kansas City Bomber.”

I believed in the T-Birds even after figuring out the Easter Bunny conspiracy. I am not ashamed to admit there were times when I cried myself to sleep because John Hall, the dastardly captain of the Outlaws (or maybe the Devils), had cheated my T-Birds out of a victory.

It’s not funny.

Which brings me, finally, to the matter of the Los Angeles Kings, the mania of the moment.

If you live and die with Kings, please don’t take this wrong. In sportswriting parlance, I’m a homer. I witnessed Fernando Valenzuela’s last performance in Dodger Blue--an exhibition at Vero Beach--and I committed the press box faux pas of clapping when he struck out a batter. I make no pretense at objectivity. And I’m sincerely rooting for the Kings to beat those conniving Montreal Canadiens and bring the Stanley Cup to this most unlikely locale. Southern California--especially L.A.--can use a winner.

But really, now. Aren’t the sun worshipers of Southern California getting a bit carried away about this oddity from the frozen north? If we had our druthers, wouldn’t about 99% of us rather see the Dodgers go from worst to first? Wouldn’t it be more fun to see the Lakers, the Angels or the Clippers win a championship? Despite Al Davis and Georgia Frontiere, I’d probably rather go to a Super Bowl parade for the Raiders or the Rams than have the Kings come home with a big trophy that, for all I know, was named for the guy who said, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

I was thinking about the incongruity of it all the other evening at El Presidente, a Mexican restaurant in Northridge where a couple dozen Kings fans had gathered to watch the big game on the big screen. There’s something not quite right about people watching hockey over margaritas. You can bet that these people prefer their skates with wheels, yet they whooped and cheered until the bizarre and bitter end, when those sneaky French Canadians stole Game 2 after successfully accusing Marty McSorley of using a stick with a tad too much curvature.

Luckily, Carlos proved as much of a Kings fan as me. He’s a painting contractor from Thousand Oaks who’d stopped in for a drink after a day on the job. We were rooting for the Kings while commiserating over our failure to understand this goofy, violent game. At least we weren’t as dumb as the guy who walked up to the bar and said, “Oh? Gretzky is playing today?”

Carlos was a naturalized U.S. citizen from Argentina. It was a little like soccer, he said, but the officiating made no sense. “It’s crazy. You clobber a guy and that’s OK.” Obviously, violence, that sense of danger, is part of the sports appeal. But if you use a stick with too much curve, it’s off to the penalty box.

Wayne Gretzky, of course, is the Ralphie Valaderas of his sport. Carlos and I talked about The Great One’s hat trick (that would be three goals to the uninitiated) that lifted the Kings to the finals--particularly the shot that he ricocheted off an opponent’s skate. Was it creative brilliance or a fluke? I’ve heard both opinions. Luck comes into play in all sports, but this seems especially true in hockey.

It’s fun to do the sport-as-metaphor analysis. It’s trite to say so, but some people believe that baseball and golf are a lot like life itself. Baseball is a game of individual actions and teamwork. Golf is a game of the individual and nature, with an etiquette that recommends that, as in our personal dealings, we should replace our divots. In hockey, the idea often seems to be to take a divot from your opponent’s face. Just look at McSorley’s mug.

It’s interesting that the Kings, before their current success, adopted the colors of silver and black, the look made famous by the Raiders and borrowed by L.A. youth culture. Did you notice that the new L.A. gang movie, “Menace II Society,” was advertised during the hockey broadcast? Those clever advertising people.

So, could it be that hockey’s sudden popularity in L.A. reflects the violence and chaos of our times?

Naw. We always liked a little vicarious violence, even when it was just Freddy Blassie chomping on Bobo Brazil, or John Hall knocking Ralphie over the rail. And L.A., more so than most towns, loves a winner. Now that the Toronto Blue Jays have taken the World Series north of the border, it would be poetic justice for L.A. to come home with the Stanley Cup. If you listen closely, I’m sure you’d hear a big “Whoa Nellie!” just coming down from Roller Derby heaven.

But I’m worried. I’m worried because Bruce McNall, the Kings owner, was watching the game with Anthony Robbins, the personal-growth guru. How embarrassing. How L.A. If the Kings need Robbins to help them discover the giant within, they’ve got problems.

Montreal in seven.

* GAME COVERAGE: C1