ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Hot Sport

The Kings, trailing 3-1 in the Stanley Cup hockey finals and on the brink of elimination, return in their remarkable season today to one of the hallowed halls of sports, the Montreal Forum.

As we wish them well and hope for a return of the series to the Forum on Saturday, there are even more hopes for this relatively new and seemingly out-of-place game of hockey now stirring in Orange County.

On Monday the wizardry of Walt Disney Co. marketing was on full display at Anaheim Arena when Chairman Michael Eisner unveiled a logo for a new National Hockey League team, the Mighty Ducks. A duck-shaped goalie’s mask was sufficiently menacing to ward off at least a few jokes about the team’s name. The shrewdness of Disney was elsewhere on display; it won big concessions on selling its products in return for helping the NHL sell the game itself.

When water was first imported to Southern California, few could have imagined that it would come to this: the Holy Grail of a game played on ice, the Stanley Cup, one day would glisten in a proud and packed Los Angeles arena, as happened last weekend. Nor would the great Hollywood image machine have seemed a likely partner for a game brought down from Canada to Anaheim.

But the tangible electricity of the Stanley Cup finals has been our collective experience these recent days. More games will come in Anaheim Arena. Hockey has taken root here along with our drought-resistant gardens. And it has won a place in our hearts.