PINNACLE OF SUCCESS

The great thing about being the owner of a hockey team is that you can pack your bags in the middle of the season, wish the coach and players luck, and go do something wild and crazy . . . like riding a mountain bike across Myanmar.

That’s what Ed Roski has planned for most of next January, only he still refers to the small country in Southeast Asia as Burma. And he doesn’t think it’s crazy.

Make no mistake, Roski’s thoughts will be with the team he owns with Philip Anschutz. But unbeknown to many, this is a man who has a strong urge to get away every now and then. And January, he says, is prime time for pedaling over the hills and through the valleys of the particular nation he has picked.

As for the game of hockey, Roski says he loves it. When he’s in town he goes to all the Kings’ home games. He has nothing but good things to say about Dave Taylor, Larry Robinson and all the King players, new and old, whom he wholeheartedly believes will go a lot further than they did last season when they were swept by St. Louis in the first round of the NHL playoffs.

“I really think they have a shot at making it to the Stanley Cup finals this year,” he says. “And they’ll have an even better shot next year.”

Perhaps.

But when it comes to entertainment, hockey just isn’t enough. So Roski looks to the outdoors.

Watching the Kings play the Mighty Ducks might be exciting, but it’s nothing compared to facing off with the sharks, the real kind, which, unlike those of the San Jose variety, actually instill fear in their opponents and sprout new teeth as fast as they lose their old ones.

Roski once went swimming with great whites off Kangaroo Island in southern Australia, though it was not without a few reservations.

“I get there and see the cage I’m supposed to get in and it’s made out of chicken wire!” he says, leaning back in his chair in his spacious sixth-floor office at Majestic Realty in the City of Industry. “I said, ‘No way I’m getting in there.’ ”

But get in there he eventually did, discovering with wide-eyed wonder and great relief that wire is all it takes to deter the ocean’s most feared predator from entering the cage and snacking on a limb.

“It turns out they just don’t like metal,” Roski says of the sharks, flashing a broad smile. “They usually come in one at a time, and what’s really eerie is that when they decide to take off, they’re just gone; you don’t even see them. Then you turn around and there he is, behind you, right in your face. I tell you, your heart stops.”

Actually, Roski’s heart seems to be pumping at a healthy pace these days. He looks very fit for a man of 60, and he credits an active lifestyle not many people know about.

What is common knowledge is that Edward P. Roski Jr. is a prominent figure on the Los Angeles sports scene. The Toluca Lake resident and graduate of USC, whose firm is one of Southern California’s top real estate development companies, burst onto the sports scene in 1995, when he and Anschutz bought the Kings.

But Roski once traveled to the headwaters of the Amazon and lived with a native tribe in the dense Brazilian jungle for 10 days.

“No, I didn’t eat spiders,” he says in response to a question, “but I saw spiders so big that they ate birds. They’d just pounce on them. And they have some of the biggest fish you have ever seen. I mean, it’s unbelievable.”

Most people who follow sports in our city are aware that Roski is the man behind the construction of the Staples Center, which he says will open, on schedule, in the fall of 1999, providing a much-needed boost for downtown Los Angeles. The Kings will play there, as will the Lakers and Clippers.

But not many know that Roski once rode his mountain bike across Mongolia. Another time, he rode around most of the perimeter of Ireland.

“Now, how many people get to Mongolia to start with?” he says. “But of those, how many get the opportunity to bicycle across it?”

Someone with a lot of money, to begin with. But also someone who can handle sitting on a hard bicycle seat every day for a month, which Roski apparently doesn’t mind.

“I think a great way to see a country is by bicycle,” he says. “You’re able to see things you wouldn’t see by car. When you’re in a car you usually have one destination in mind and you go straight there. When you’re on a bicycle, you see something you like and you just pedal on over and take a look.”

Roski and Anschutz have been in the news often for their efforts to bring professional football back to Los Angeles, and to have that football team play in the Coliseum, after its renovation into a state-of-the-art facility by Roski, of course.

That effort continues.

“I think Los Angeles will definitely get a football team, either an expansion team or somebody will move here,” he says. “And we still feel that the best location is the Coliseum.”

But it has been mentioned only in passing that Roski loves to climb mountains.

Actually, he just loves mountains. Among those he has conquered are Rainier in Washington, Kilimanjaro in Africa, Denali in Alaska and a dozen or so others in South America.

One of those he hasn’t is his favorite destination, Mt. Everest, the world’s highest peak, poking into the heavens at 29,028 feet. But Roski has trekked to the base camp of Everest three times.

More recently, in mid-June, he joined an American expedition to nearby K2 in Pakistan, another Himalayan giant, towering 28,250 feet and as notorious as Everest for its fickle weather. More than 40 people have died trying to get to the top or back down.

Roski had no plans to reach the summit; he merely went along during the 2 1/2-week trek, mostly atop an icy glacier, to base camp at about 16,000 feet.

From there, he wished his new friends luck and did a little exploring of his own before returning home--after 26 days away--to tend to business.

“It was a great experience,” he says. “You’re sitting there at about 15,000 feet, looking all around you at all these mountains that are still 15,000 feet higher than you are.”

Roski learned this week that Mother Nature, providing steady blasts of sleet, snow and wind, had thwarted the summit attempt of the group he had been with, ending the hopes of Heidi Howkins to become the first American woman to stand atop K2.

That they all made it back to base camp safely seemed to be his greatest concern.

Asked if he might eventually find the time and muster the energy to try for the summit of one of these famous peaks, Roski, who is married and the father of three, says he has no such lofty ambitions.

“Summits are not an obsession with me,” he says. “I just enjoy the mountains. Maybe if I had been more serious about it when I was much younger I might have tried. But I was always working.

“I think it’s a dream of all of us to summit one of the big peaks. But the people who do this devote their lives to it. It takes a lot of time and if you’re working, you don’t really have the time to take climbing to that level. But at least I get to go there, and say, ‘Wow, that’s great.’ ”

His view these days isn’t so great. From his office one can check out the traffic on the Pomona Freeway and, in the distance, the smog-shrouded hills. But Roski doesn’t mind. The Staples Center is taking shape and another hockey season is just around the corner.

Not long after that, it’ll be time for another vacation.

AS THE WORLD TURNS

Karen Thorndike of Seattle sailed into San Diego on Tuesday morning amid cheers of dozens of supporters. But her claim to be the first American woman to circumnavigate the globe solo in a sailboat is the subject of some debate. Pat Henry of the Bay Area completed a journey from Acapulco to Acapulco several months ago.

No one is doubting this, but Thorndike’s camp points out that Henry took the equatorial route and traveled through the Suez and Panama canals, at which time she had tenders aboard and in charge of her vessel.

Thorndike sailed around the five great capes and had no such assistance, therefore she probably will get the credit she has sought over the course of her two-year journey.

“It’s not really a debate, but confusion over what constitutes a solo-circumnavigation,” said Cathy Main, a spokeswoman for Thorndike. “Solo means without assistance and therefore going through one or another canal negates a solo-circumnavigation.”

Henry says that the westward distance gained with tenders on her boat was negligible but acknowledges that those in traditional sailing circles might consider hers not as significant a journey as Thorndike’s.

But she’s proud of what she accomplished nonetheless and is currently living in Acapulco writing a book on her adventure.

“And my hat’s off to Karen for what she accomplished,” she said.

BLOODTHIRSTY

Don Ashley, owner of Pierpoint Sportfishing, was asked how the fishing has been this week, what with the albacore all but gone.

“We’re just killing the yellowtail,” he answered. “We’d like to still be killing the albacore, but we’re slaughtering the yellowtail at San Clemente Island, and as long as we have something to kill while we’re waiting for the yellowfin tuna to show, we’re happy.”

CATCH OF THE DAY

Brad Heater of San Jose gets credit this week for a 66-pound striped bass he landed at O’Neill Forebay near his home. “That fish was huge--you could have fit a basketball in its mouth,” Ryan Calima of Coyote Bait and Tackle, told Western Outdoor News.

Heater’s fish was shy of the world record--also caught at the reservoir--for striped bass caught in landlocked waters by less than two pounds. Tough luck, especially since the angler left the lunker on his lawn for 12 hours before taking it to the bait shop to have it weighed. “That fish could have easily broken the world record if it weren’t so dehydrated,” Calima said.

AND FINALLY

Gov. Pete Wilson has signed a wide-ranging outdoor bill designed to improve fishing participation, among other things. The most noteworthy change is replacing the current one-day license--at a cost of $7.50--with a two-day license at no extra cost, thus enabling anglers who fish only once or twice a year on weekend backpacking or camping trips to cast a line without having to buy two licenses. The law goes into effect Jan. 1, 1999.

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FISH REPORT, C13

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

A Look at Edward P. Roski Jr.

* Age: 60.

* College: USC (graduated 1962).

* Title: President, Majestic Realty Company, City of Industry.

* Owns: Los Angeles Kings, with business partner Philip Anschutz.

* Projects: Building, with Anschutz, Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. Facility will be site of King, Laker and Clipper home games, and a variety of non-sporting events.

* Goal: To bring an NFL team back to the Los Angeles Coliseum.

* Hobbies: Mountain climbing, mountain biking, trekking and scuba diving.