Ducks Play in Anaheim Like Bad Muzak

You build a hockey pavilion across the street from a haunted house, you tempt the Fates.

You then let Barry Manilow open the place, christening the halls with “Mandy” and “Copacabana,” and you really start to get on the Fates’ nerves.

How else does one explain the Mighty Ducks’ current relationship with their home rink, the supposedly safe and sane Anaheim Arena, which, after a dozen regular-season games, already bears a striking resemblance to the relationship the Rams and the Angels have with Anaheim Stadium?

The Ducks and the San Jose Sharks began their Friday matinee in Anaheim without a referee. Chuck Harrison, the replacement official who drew the assignment, had his flight snowed in--in Dallas--and with no replacement for the replacement, the teams had to skate on for a period with two linesmen and no referee.

“Snow in Dallas?” Duck center Terry Yake asked with eyebrow arched. “That isn’t right.”

Then the Ducks break out to a 2-0 lead, pause for intermission, and give both goals right back, just as soon as you could say “Johan Garpenlov.”

Then Duck defenseman Mark Ferner tries to clear the puck in front of his net, loses it in a drift of ice shavings and the puck goes skipping off the stick of San Jose’s Mike Sullivan for a shorthanded tie-breaking goal.

Then the Ducks cough up another goal on another defensive breakdown and go on to lose, 4-3, for the third time in three starts against a San Jose team that won only 11 games--three on the road--all of last season.

The Ducks have conquered Madison Square Garden, the Pacific and Northlands coliseums, the Olympic Saddledome, but they can’t figure out Anaheim Arena. They are 4-0 in their last four road games--and 0-4 in their last four home games. They just completed a four-game sweep through the upper reaches of the Pacific Division, yet are a mere 1-6-2 in their last nine games in Anaheim, leaving them with an overall home record of 2-8-2.

Strange things happen here. The scoreboard clock goes mysteriously on the blink, sitting out the first period. After critical moments in the game, the full-color video screen shows fans stuffing their faces with popcorn instead of a slow-motion replay. The referee shows up for a 1 o’clock game at 2.

And how about the Ducks?

Both of their first two goals were shorthanded--only two officials on the ice--but at full strength, with three striped shirts in place, the Ducks fall apart. Maybe it was Harrison. Before his plane came in, the Ducks were cruising, on rapid-fire goals by Steven King and Patrik Carnback. But after Harrison’s arrival, the Ducks scored two goals to San Jose’s four and were penalized five times to San Jose’s two.

The team that wandered aimlessly through the final 40 minutes Friday was pale imitation of the purple people-eating machine that spent the last week terrorizing its way across Canada. They were the Eggplants That Ate Alberta, with a Vancouver appetizer, and they capped the trip by devouring the Jets in Winnipeg in front an approving Michael Eisner.

(Eisner doesn’t make many stopovers in Manitoba, but he is rumored to be considering a new theme park there, Therm-O-Disney, and with his hockey team in town at the same time, it proved to be a happy coincidence.)

By the time the Ducks returned to Orange County, they were in possession of 18 standings points--nine more than Edmonton, two more than the Islanders and two fewer than the Kings and the Sharks. With a victory Friday, the Ducks would have forced a three-way tie for third place in the Pacific Division.

They left the ice, their home ice, with an 0-3 record against the Sharks and shaking their heads over how these things happen.

So why can’t the Ducks win at home? Yake listened to the question and didn’t answer for 10, 15 seconds, staring a hole through the locker room wall.

“I can’t answer that,” he said, finally, through clenched teeth. “I can’t tell you what I really think. It wouldn’t be good for my career. You got another question?”

Goaltender Ron Tugnutt did a pretty good of reading Yake’s mind, however.

“We’ve got to play our road-style game--and we got away from that after the first period,” Tugnutt said. Road-style? “That’s how we play on the road,” Tugnutt explained. “We use the boards, we’ve got big strong wingers who can outmuscle the other team for the puck in the corners, we get the puck to the guy in the slot . . .

“We can outmuscle teams in their own building, that’s why we’re an effective road team. We’ve got to win games, 3-2, on a regular basis. We’ve got to outmuscle teams. We can’t finesse people.”

In other words, the Ducks’ defense rested. Yake didn’t want to say it, though Coach Ron Wilson used his postgame soapbox to describe the performance of his defensemen as “poor” and “awful.”

“Maybe we’re just road warriors,” Yake offered, managing a sliver of a smile. “Maybe we’ve got to play San Jose differently. They’ve got a better team than most people think--an explosive Russian line, a lot of players who can finish.

“Maybe we have to play them the way we play (Winnipeg’s Teemu) Selanne and (Calgary’s Theoren) Fleury and (Vancouver’s Pavel) Bure and give them no room at all.”

Or maybe they have to play them at a neutral site, for the curse of Manilow has descended upon Anaheim Arena, and it has rooted itself with a vengeance.

Clearly, an exorcism is in order.

Does Arrowhead bottle holy water?