Kings Are a Study in Ineptitude

I went to a hockey game Wednesday night, but could not recognize the home team. What a dreadful and painful experience it was, watching what has become of the Los Angeles Kings, a good bunch of guys and a once-upon-a-time good team. They rolled over and played dead like dogs during the game, then hid like mice when it was over.

This is a team in need of a heart transplant, this “team of fat cats,” as Coach Barry Melrose dutifully blistered them after a 4-0 defeat to Chicago that revealed the Kings at their lousiest, laziest worst. I left the Forum sorry for whatever economic hardship owner Bruce McNall might or might not be having, because this truly was a night when every man, woman and child in Inglewood deserved a refund.

The fans were hard on the Kings.

Then Melrose said, “The fans were too kind to us.”

Then he was even harder on the Kings.

“We talk about making the playoffs and we haven’t got one player who wants to make the playoffs,” the coach said, seething.

Guess those Anthony Robbins courses haven’t helped.

The only real reason to attend a King game these days is to pay respects to King Wayne himself, the deserving Wayne Gretzky, as he waits and waits and waits for a shot at breaking Gordie Howe’s goal record so he can get out of the limelight and on with his life. I have to give Gretzky all the credit in the world for all of his quiet candor--he agreed with every word Melrose said--and the gentle stabs at good humor he made after hearing his own teammates booed at the Forum as though they were all in town visiting from Edmonton.

Gretzky said, “There’s absolutely no reason and no excuse for not being sharp and not being ready to play.”

Gretzky included Gretzky.

“I’m not doing anything, either,” he said.

Once again he drew a blank against Ed Belfour, the goalie from Chicago who has never let one Gretzky-shot puck past him.

It was with all the effort he could muster, I thought, that Gretz got a crooked smile on his face and said that Belfour wasn’t the only one who had kept him from scoring in his career--that, in an exhibition once, writer George Plimpton had denied him, too. I have no idea when this was, however, since my only published record of Plimpton on ice is when Boston once used him in goal against Philadelphia and he stopped Reggie Leach on a penalty shot.

Well, comedy tomorrow, tragedy tonight at the Forum, where sadness now rules. The Kings have quit. Their power play is a joke. Their speed and hustle have vanished. Their inadequacies abound. During their first 20 minutes against Belfour, they peppered him with all of seven shots. He could have ordered a submarine sandwich from Subway and eaten half of it before anybody from the Kings came near his crease. The Blackhawks could have used six skaters and given Belfour tickets to go see Jay Leno.

In the third period, the Kings took six shots, none by Gretzky. Somebody leave a wake-up call for Gordie Howe for 1995. There isn’t much time before the ’94 playoffs, which the Kings should enjoy greatly on television.

Melrose, no fun to be around any more, said, “We’re a terrible team. There are no excuses. If anybody says there are, it’s bull . . . “

Gretzky, not much fun himself at the moment, said, “He’s probably right. The talent we have is a lot better than the situation we’re in. Consequently, (Melrose’s) respect for the hockey club is dwindling.”

Surprised the coach said what he said?

“No, I’m surprised he didn’t say it sooner,” Gretzky said.

Melrose, once full of wit and mischief, is mad as hell and not going to take much more of this. Gretzky, always docile but rarely down in the dumps, looks wrung out and sounds sadder than sad. McNall, once the Tommy Lasorda of merry hosts, is unhappily enduring the most stressful year of his public life. The hockey team that once gave all three heartfelt joy is giving them nothing but heartburn now.

The Kings have become bums.

No, that’s being too kind to them.