KINGS REPORT

Bobby Goldwater, the senior vice president and general manager of the arena, kept the puck used in Wednesday’s opening face-off to place in a memorabilia display whose location has yet to be determined.

“I hope we’ll be collecting some things from Bruce Springsteen,” Goldwater said. “We asked him if he would be kind enough to leave something as the first official performer and we’re hopeful he will do that.”

Goldwater said he will ask the Clippers and Lakers to make similar contributions after their home openers next month. “This building’s history started this week, so we know 10, 20, 25 years from now people will thank us for doing this.”

Goldwater also said he is pleased with how few parking foulups have resulted after the first two Springsteen concerts, Sunday and Monday.

“Each was a full house, which is more people than we have here [Wednesday] and all the parking lots were empty within 35 minutes,” Goldwater said. “The message is that you can stay late and still get out quickly. I’d certainly like to see [fans not leave early]. Frankly, I think fans would like to stay until the end.”

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Changing the arena’s configuration from a concert to hockey was one Lee Zeidman had dreaded. But Zeidman, the vice president of building operations, said the switch went almost flawlessly after Monday’s Springsteen show.

“There was only one glitch. We tried to keep as much of Bruce Springsteen’s rig [sound and light equipment] up in the air as we could, but after looking at it, we decided to take it down because it put some shadows on the ice. It didn’t get in anyone’s view, but we didn’t want to have that for our grand opening. The changeover crew will be in at 3 a.m. [Thursday] to turn it around to a concert setting again, but we’re going to leave some of it up for the next game [Friday].”

The condition of the ice, a potential cause for concern in a warm climate and in a building that will host more than 200 events in its first year, has not been a problem, Zeidman said.

“I’m very happy with the condition of the ice. The players are very happy and that’s what’s important,” he said. “It’s going to be a learning process. We’ve got more space and more bells and whistles than before and we only had six times to practice our conversions. But we’ve got a good, hybrid crew from the Sports Arena and the Forum, and it’s just a matter of getting it down.”