Kings Not Eager to Deal With Postponement : Hockey: Team is hoping to make fresh start after missing the playoffs by 16 points last season.

King owner Joseph M. Cohen had received his MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and reported to his new job at Madison Square Garden in 1970. One of his duties was dealing with the union.

Actually, unions .

“Seventeen unions, and they were all separate unions,” Cohen said. “It was one of my major things. Some of the guys I was negotiating with had worked for my dad.

“College didn’t train me for that.”

And it didn’t train King General Manager Sam McMaster for his first labor experience, either. Before McMaster had decided to make hockey his career, he was a high school business teacher in Scarborough, Ontario, where he went through a teachers’ strike.

“It was over 20 years ago,”

McMaster said, shaking his head. “You had to picket. I didn’t like it at all.”

Although the two men come to the table with different labor experiences, they are, no surprise, firmly united behind NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s threat of a postponement to the start of the season on Saturday.

There is much at stake for all NHL teams in this labor dispute, but the Kings, in particular, have been eager for a fresh start after missing the playoffs by a 16-point margin last season.

Cohen and co-owner Jeffrey P. Sudikoff have encountered obstacle after obstacle since agreeing to buy a majority interest in the Kings in December, 1993. The sale took months to close and, at one point, Sudikoff and Cohen’s two lenders--insurance giants Cigna and Allstate--became skittish about financing the deal and withdrew after announcement of a federal grand jury investigation into whether then-owner Bruce McNall has falsified loan documents.

Now, the looming postponement represents another hurdle.

“Jeffrey and I are excited, we can’t wait for the season to start,” Cohen said. “We want the season to start on time.

“I remain the eternal optimist. I’m enjoying the exhibition season. We’re seeing some of what we’ve done starting to take shape.”

Still, as eager as Cohen and Sudikoff are for attention to return to the hockey rink, Cohen remains realistic about the rationale behind the decision to postpone the start of the season if there is no new collective bargaining agreement.

“A lengthy lockout isn’t good, but neither is a business that doesn’t work,” he said. “ . . . The business has to work for everybody or something will go haywire. Gary is hopeful of an 80-game schedule. We hope to play the whole schedule.”

The players have said they could have forced a showdown last spring but declined to take such action and that the sport had its most exciting and visible playoffs in years.

But Bettman and the owners have maintained that the NHL needs a long agreement in order to put the sport on a solid foundation, arguing against a revised collective bargaining agreement, saying they don’t want to put another coat of paint on a window that has so much paint it has begun to peel.

“The business needs attention,” Cohen said. “The players agree on that. . . . It needs some work. Expenses are rising faster than revenues. That’s not a good thing.”

There seems to be little visible acrimony between players and club management, in contrast to the players’ 10-day strike in 1992. If anything, anger is directed at Bettman.

McMaster isn’t taking anything personally, either, saying he had no problem with the King players, in a sign of union solidarity, shaking hands with the Rangers and the Penguins before games last week.

The King players, meanwhile, are bracing themselves for a long work stoppage.

“Like Wayne Gretzky said, it’s not going to be a week, it’ll be something like three or four months before it gets settled,” right wing Rick Tocchet said.

Said right wing Tony Granato: “I’d be disappointed. A lot of people put their heart and soul into training camp. To have the season in jeopardy--everyone is concerned. Mentally, it’s been hard. You’ve got to put it out of your mind.”

Bob Goodenow, executive director of the NHL Players Assn., traveled through Southern California last week and spoke to the Kings and Mighty Ducks. Some players around the league suggested that the union might accept salary limits for rookies, but none of the Kings have enrolled in that school of thought.

King goaltender Kelly Hrudey said that a rookie salary cap is unacceptable.

“I don’t believe in a salary cap in any way, shape or form in any occupation,” Hrudey said. “It doesn’t matter if you are in your first year.”

Said defenseman Charlie Huddy: “I have only two, three years left. But a lot of this we’re working for is for the younger guys. I could say, ‘Forget it, I don’t want to go (out).’ You can’t do stuff like that. Because this is helping out people down the road.”