THE NHL / HELENE ELLIOTT : Among McNall’s Crimes Was Betraying Our Trust

We got taken in. Played for suckers. Hoodwinked.

All of us.

NHL executives, fans and reporters too.

Bruce McNall fooled us, but we were willing accomplices.

With his open checkbook and his glamorous Hollywood connections, McNall charmed us into believing that he would popularize hockey and lift it above the tired “I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out” jokes. He would legitimize the sport and, by extension, legitimize those who write about it or follow it. Hockey wouldn’t be a cult sport anymore. We’d all benefit. Why wouldn’t we believe him?

We marveled at his Horatio Alger-like success story, laughed at his jokes, praised his openness and declared him an example of the young, hip owner the NHL needed. As it had seduced us, his lavish spending seduced the NHL’s Board of Governors, who elected him their chairman and made him one of the league’s most powerful figures.

The governors believed in him because they believed in his money. We believed in him because he amused us and because we wanted to think the American dream could still come true. It sounded so terrific, the story of a kid who parlayed a passion for ancient coins into a multimillion-dollar empire. Why look to see if there were strings attached when he seemed to be flying so high?

None of us looked closely enough. Not the folks who ran the NHL then--and who have since gone on to their own just punishments--and not us.

McNall did what many of us fantasize about if we win the lottery or come into an inheritance: He bought his favorite sports team. He was us, or what we envision ourselves becoming if we’re lucky. He made his fortune. He didn’t inherit a team and hire caretakers to run it while he sunned himself on his yacht. He was out there, talking to fans and players and having a blast.

We marveled at his business sense when he sweet-talked NHL executives into giving him an incredible deal when the Mighty Ducks joined the league last season. Of the Ducks’ $50-million expansion fee, he pocketed half--reportedly including $12.5 million payable immediately. He also got a fat consultant’s fee for bringing Disney’s dollars into the NHL’s treasure chest. No one ever got such favorable indemnification terms when an expansion team entered his territory--or was paid so quickly. We thought it was shrewd negotiating. We’ve since realized it was a desperate move to keep himself afloat financially. All it did was postpone the inevitable.

He wasn’t polished. He spoke too loud and too much, but he was brash and funny, and we thought he was the best thing to happen to hockey since frozen pucks.

That’s why we all felt betrayed when McNall pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy, one count of wire fraud and two counts of bank fraud, for which he probably will spend three to nine years in prison.

How did it come to this? He had so much. Why did he need to lie and cheat to get more?

He was juggling so many balls--a movie company, a coin company, a football team, a hockey team--some had to crash, just as his lies came home. What began as embellishments of his educational background became fabrications, and those grew up to be lies. Those became attempts to defraud, as he admitted in the plea bargain.

We probably should have seen this coming. We didn’t want to look. And the NHL, before the Gary Bettman regime, was too busy to look because it was counting the money King merchandising brought in. At least Bettman, barely a year after taking the job, realized the extent of McNall’s entanglements and took steps to ensure the future of the franchise was not compromised.

The men who saved McNall’s stake in the Kings, Joe Cohen and Jeffrey Sudikoff, are also trying to save what’s left of his reputation. That qualifies as a true act of loyalty, considering McNall did everything he could to alienate them before the sale was completed, including bad-mouthing them and concealing from them the depth of his financial abyss.

Cohen tells anyone who will listen that McNall has done much for hockey in Los Angeles and for the NHL. McNall brought Wayne Gretzky here, which in turn brought hockey enough popularity to ensure the success of the Ducks. Don’t forget that, Cohen says. The media, he says, only talked about negatives. Remember the good deeds McNall has done.

Sorry, that won’t wash. In no way can the media--the messengers--take the blame. McNall lied. He defrauded banks. This was not a man stealing food to feed his starving family. This was a man feeding his voracious ego and his need to feel important.

And this is a man who, given ample chance to show remorse, has yet to say the word sorry . Oh, it wasn’t his fault, he says, it was his associates who led him astray. Hog the glory and shift the blame, that’s McNall.

If you have even the slightest inclination to pity him, realize that you’re going to pay for his sins. Banks that lost money on bad loans to McNall will try to make it up on higher fees to their customers and higher mortgage and loan rates. They will pay you a lower interest rate on your savings account or less of a dividend if you happen to own their stock. Remember that when you judge McNall.

One count of conspiracy, one count of wire fraud and two counts of bank fraud. What the court documents don’t say is that Bruce McNall is also guilty of betraying our trust. And there’s no penance grave enough to atone for that.