They Are No Longer Kings of the Town

Los Angeles was a hockey town for 15 minutes. (OK, 20.) People who thought a faceoff was a Beverly Hills plastic surgery procedure were suddenly coming to hockey games. People who thought the Blue Line was the name of a commuter train were suddenly watching games on TV. People who thought Pavel Bure was a new frozen yogurt flavor from Ben and Jerry’s were suddenly yakking about hockey in the malls.

How cool it was to play Spot the Movie Stars in the crowds sitting rinkside, although I am still not sure why it was OK to have Goldie Hawn inside a hockey team’s dressing room when Tom Lasorda can no longer get Frank Sinatra inside his. What a hoot it was to see Ronald and Nancy Reagan in their seats behind the glass, as we sat there and wondered if the former First Lady felt like calling out to the goons during a fight, “Knock his teeth out!”

Our town belonged to the Kings, for a fast shift or two there. They were so hot, you thought the ice might melt. Every pass caused a reaction, every shot a groan or a cheer.

We had the greatest player on the globe, Wayne Gretzky, leading the way, miraculously recovered from career-endangering back pain at a time when so many of our other superstars were leaving us. We had a hot young coach, Barry Melrose, who looked like someone who could be as comfortable with Mariah Carey as with Jari Kurri, and a sprightly big-bopper of an owner, Bruce McNall, so committed to his team’s improvement that he hired new management to replace himself.

And because our baseball, football and basketball professionals had all come unraveled at once, the Kings were sitting as pretty as pretty can sit.

So what happened? Where did they go wrong?

Theirs is not so much a calamity as a predicament, because this season is far from over and everybody outside of Ottawa is still a contender to make the NHL playoffs. Nevertheless, for reasons unexplained and possibly inexplicable, the Kings have gone backpedaling to where they were before and where they have usually been--stuck in the middle of the pack, just another team. And what a pity, because here was an organization that had finally gotten itself organized.

You could argue forever whose fault this is, whether Melrose’s many motivational techniques are now putting the giants right back to sleep after having awakened them; or whether General Manager Nick Beverley’s disagreements with the coach over what--or whom--this club needs have been responsible for several ruinous transactions; or whether, at the top of the organizational ladder, Roy Mlakar has done anything to stop the bleeding or ever will. Who, for sure, knows?

One who often gets caught in the web of intrigue is Gretzky, who already has enough to worry about, what with carrying the team, closing in on one of hockey’s greatest records and sweeping up what’s left of his earthquake-ravaged house. Gretzky’s profile is such that, for someone so quiet, he tends to be suspected of kibitzing whenever the Kings do a deal, or stipulating what this team must do to keep him happy. These rumors occasionally seem far-fetched, for if Gretzky was guilty of having his way all the time, then why in the world are Paul Coffey and Marty McSorley playing someplace else?

In the Dumbest Deals of the Decade competition, these particular doozies could be running 1-2. Coffey and McSorley could have been the heart and soul of this hockey team. Gretzky is sometimes compared to Magic Johnson in his impact, but actually he is the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of this team--the talent, not the spirit. Coffey was the leadership and McSorley was the backbone. Coffey was the Magic Johnson and McSorley was the A.C. Green. The Lakers have not prospered without these guys and neither have the Kings.

Spilt milk, though. As are the oversights or misjudgments that allowed Corey Millen to slip away, or the absurd tug-of-war over Jimmy Carson, who cost the team Coffey, then was benched, then was rewarded with a rich contract, then was re-benched, then was traded to a team Los Angeles is trying to catch in its own division. And so a man once traded for Wayne Gretzky and for Paul Coffey was traded straight-up for Dixon Ward. Shrewd. You can’t find marked-down merchandise like this at a going-out-of-business sale.

Where are the Kings going? Hard to say. It is as hard to predict as who’s going to occupy the coach’s doghouse day by day, out back where Barry buries the bones. One recent tenant has been Shawn McEachern, the very man acquired for McSorley. Everyone’s uneasy. Tony Granato wonders where he’ll be traded, Alex Zhitnik wonders how safe his relatives are back in Russia, Pat Conacher makes impassioned appeals in support of the coach and Dave Taylor daydreams of playing in a Stanley Cup before the NHL’s mandatory retirement at age 65.

When the Kings were wobbly a year ago, their desperate measure was to call up minor league lifer Rick Knickle to tend goal. Today, Knickle isn’t worth four cents, in the general manager’s opinion. The desperate measure du jour is Robert Lang, a rookie center promoted just in time to score a game-tying goal against the New York Rangers on a rink-long rush that was a joy to behold. The game-losing goal, courtesy of Mark Messier, was something less than joyful. More than 33,000 fans jammed two area arenas Thursday night to see hockey and basketball games. Alas, about 30,000 of them seemed to be pulling for the visiting teams from New York.

There was a month last spring when the Kings could have drawn 33,000, all by themselves. Then spring became summer, autumn became winter and the new Kings became the old Kings all over again, testing our patience. And we could scream at them to get rid of some of their players, but, see, that’s the whole problem.

They already have.