He Caps It Off With a Blast at Kings’ Fans

For seven seasons, he watched the Kings play their usually ineffective defense and kept his mouth shut. At least publicly.

But now Cap Raeder no longer has to keep quiet.

Raeder was a King assistant for seven years before being fired late last season along with coach Barry Melrose. Raeder was recently hired by the Boston Bruins.

A Massachusetts native, Raeder told the Boston Globe that coaching the Bruins will be easier because he will be away from L.A. fans.

“They didn’t want tight defense,” Raeder said. “They wanted goals. We could score 10 goals and still lose. It was like getting ready to kick a field goal or score a touchdown. We wanted more tight defense, but they thought that was boring.”

Add Raeder: He didn’t think much of the Kings’ front office, either.

“It was a very unstable environment,” Raeder said. “When I met with [Boston General Manager] Harry Sinden and [Sinden’s assistant] Mike O’Connell, they seemed so much together. It was such a nice feeling. Things were very splintered in L.A.”

In Boston, Raeder will be working under new Coach Steve Kasper, whom Raeder coached when Kasper was a King.

Trivia time: In an old episode of the television program, “Cheers,” former Boston Celtic Kevin McHale spent the entire show agonizing over how many bolts were used to keep the parquet floor in place in Boston Garden. So, how many were used?

Tiebreaker or backbreaker: Virginie Buisson and Noelle Van Lottum played the longest women’s match in open-era Grand Slam tennis history in the first round of the French Open. Buisson won the 4-hour 7-minute match, 6-7 (7-3), 7-5, 6-2. The first set alone took an hour and 45 minutes.

At that, the match was more than two hours shorter than the longest battle of the open era. That was the 6-hour 31-minute marathon between Americans Jean Hepner and Vickie Nelson in 1984. Nelson won, 6-4, 7-6 (13-11).

The tiebreaker in that one took an hour and 47 minutes. One grueling point in that tiebreaker took 29 minutes as the ball crossed the net 643 times.

Add marathon: Tom Fleming and Tom Broderick marked the 100th anniversary of a New York country club by playing a few rounds of golf.

Six, to be exact.

The pair played 108 holes in a golf marathon at the Lake Placid Club Resort that went from 4:45 a.m. to 5:35 p.m.

“By the end, I was struggling,” Fleming said. “I couldn’t hit the iron anymore, so I stayed with the fairway woods until a chip-shot birdie in the last round livened me up.”

Fleming broke 80 in four of the rounds. Broderick stayed under 90 until the last round, when he shot a 94.

Tough guys? Not as tough as they could have been. They used a motorized cart for all six rounds.

Trivia answer: 988.

Quotebook: San Francisco 49er fullback William Floyd on the team’s new offensive coordinator, Marc Trestman: “Trestman is a twist between Bill Walsh and Einstein.”