Noble Kings

By Though the Goalie Competition Between Them Is Fierce, Fiset and Storr Can Count on Each Other’s Loyal Support and JIM HODGES

Nov. 13, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

With half of the third period played Tuesday night, Jamie Storr skated off the ice with the rest of the Kings, then detoured on his way to the bench. To his left, white-sweatered teammates were getting heated instructions from red-faced Coach Andy Murray during a television timeout.

Storr didn’t bother. What could Murray tell him about blocking a shot?

Instead, he went to Stephane Fiset for a meeting of the United NHL Goaltenders Union, Kings’ local.

It was a tense 1-1 game against Edmonton.

Storr and Fiset were laughing. It had something to do with a snack.

“We’re very open,” Storr says. “You see something. He sees something. We talk. I might make a face to make him laugh. We tell jokes, relax each other.”

Storr was relaxed into finishing the tie with the Oilers.

They are their own worst critics, their own best friends, their biggest competitors, their staunchest supporters.

They are as different as they can be.

They are as alike as they need to be.

Fiset, at 29, is a hockey generation removed from Storr. A sports utility vehicle-driving family man, he dotes on daughter Karolane so much that Toys “R” Us is willing to send a limo when he returns from a trip; and wife Isabelle is driven to distraction.

“I just got off the road,” he says. “I don’t want to go home and yell at [Karolane].”

Storr, 23, bought his sports car because “I understand it will get 90 in first gear.” With wife Niki, he dotes on Bugsy and Phoenix, their basset hounds, and Newman, their black Labrador retriever.

“They get all the space here,” he says.

Fiset, a Quebecois, wears his Gallic temperament on his sleeve.

Storr, from Ontario, fits into Southern California easily in his demeanor. What, him worry?

Fiset is a movie- and restaurant-goer.

Storr is a habitue of the Sony Playstation.

Fiset used to burn up the Harbor Freeway and Isabelle’s ears after a bad game.

“But then I thought about it and [the family] doesn’t deserve to see me so [ticked] off because of something I did,” he says.

Storr already knows to put the game behind him, take a Tylenol and get some sleep because life is too short to brood about a hockey game.

They are two disparate personalities, and they are also proof that two into one can go, as long as the one is a job with the Kings.

“I don’t know where Columbus, Ohio, is and I hope I don’t find out,” says Storr of the NHL’s next expansion site, which, with Minnesota, is going to need a goalie.

Perhaps Storr could be No. 1 there if he were chosen in next summer’s expansion draft. Perhaps Fiset could be.

Neither wants to find out.

“We’ve gone through the tough times, and we’re looking to stay here,” says Fiset of himself and his family.

He and Storr have known each other since they played together on the 1994 Canadian national team that won the World Championship for the first time in 33 years.

Fiset, then the No. 1 goalie for Quebec, was the backup goalie to Edmonton’s Bill Ranford with the national team and played in two games.

Storr was along for the ride because he was the best junior goalie in Canada.

He was a King first, drafted in 1994.

Fiset joined the team two years later, after a trade with Colorado that was made with the idea that he would fight a holding action until Storr matured.

Fiset took the Kings to the 1998 playoffs, only to be benched in favor of Storr.

“He was angry, but he told me, ‘I’m not angry with you,’ ” says Storr. “He said, ‘I’m angry with [then-coach] Larry [Robinson]. I hope you play well and we win.’ ”

Now Storr has matured, but Fiset is still holding and was playing better than ever until he bruised his hand stopping a shot in warm-ups Tuesday.

“I lost so much in Canada, in Quebec, and I learned to win in Colorado,” he says. “I learned to like that feeling, and I like that feeling here.”

He had it, with a 7-4-3 record and a 2.45 goals-against average until the injury. His numbers have never been better.

“My legs are stronger,” Fiset says. “Not just to support me, but they make my feet quicker from side to side and front to back. I started an exercise program during last season, and it felt good. I saw Luc [Robitaille] working out in the program and he had an unbelievable season.”

While Fiset played better than ever, Storr watched.

“They were pretty much even coming out of training camp,” says Murray. “I thought Fizz was slightly better and I told Jamie so.”

That edge got Fiset the start in goal for the season opener at Nashville. A 2-0 shutout kept him there.

The Kings won and he won and kept the job. Storr played infrequently.

“He’s gotten the opportunity,” Storr says. “I know that if I got the opportunity, then I’d make the decision [concerning whom to play] harder. I know I have to play every game the best of my life [to keep playing].”

And so he stepped in on Tuesday and gave up a goal to Edmonton. And on Thursday, when he was a 5-2 winner over Colorado.

Fiset is recovering nicely. Storr will play Sunday at Phoenix, even if Fiset is ready.

“Fizz took the opportunity and ran with it,” says Storr. “When I get the opportunity, I want to run with it.”

He’s sprinting.

And both are laughing during union meetings amid tense hockey games.

Only five days earlier, Fiset had received a three-year, $7.05-million contract that can become four years and nearly $10 million if the team so chooses. In Fiset’s certainty, Storr saw his own uncertainty.

Reassurance came from the usual place.

“I told him, ‘Hey, they’re going to try and keep us both. Don’t be afraid,’ ” Fiset said.

Storr isn’t.

“I want to be the No. 1 goalie,” he says. “But mostly I want to win. If Steph plays 70 games, that’s OK because it means that we’re winning and I want to play in the playoffs. I look at it this way: Last year, individually, I had one of the best years of my life and we didn’t make the playoffs.”

Fiset’s desire is mutual, and he goes Storr one better. Fiset is the only King to have played on a Stanley Cup-winning team. The Avalanche was the 1996 champion, with Fiset backing up Patrick Roy.

“I’d like to win the Cup again, this time playing a lot,” he says. “I want to see what that feels like. I want my teammates to see what that feels like.”

He wants Storr to see what it feels like.

It’s something else they can laugh about.

Together.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Jamie Storr at a Glance

* Age: 23

* Height, weight: 6-2, 195

* Catches: Left

* NHL teams: Kings. First-round pick (seventh overall) in 1994 entry draft.

* Longest win streak: 6, Dec. 28, 1998-Jan. 14, 1999.

* 1999 line: Games--6; GAA--2.49; Record--3-0-1. Save Pct.--.901; Shutouts--0.

* Career shutouts: 6.