How’s the View?...Well, It Depends

Climbing step after step, an uncertain look on his face, Fred Avendano searches for his seat in the highest row at Staples Center.

How high is he?

Picture a man sitting atop a ladder. The ladder is standing on the roof of the Great Western Forum.

Avendano is that far above the ice.

“When I talked to the guy on the phone, he made it seem a lot different than this,” Avendano says, recalling his chat with a ticket salesman. “He made it seem like you could see the game without binoculars.”

Now drop 50 or so feet toward sea level. Dave and Laura Nash settle comfortably into their $12,500-a-year premium seats.

“On the seating chart, these looked a whole lot farther away,” Dave says.

Laura smiles. “These seats are awesome.”

It’s all a matter of perspective and, on the occasion of the first King game at the new downtown arena Wednesday night, perspective depended on the ticket in your hand.

Fans were curious about the new building.

Curious enough to fill every one of the 18,118 seats. That’s roughly 2,000 more than for hockey at the Forum--one difference being that the top row at Staples Center is 105 feet above floor level, 35 feet higher than at the Forum.

They were curious enough to arrive well before the opening face-off, a rarity in Los Angeles.

“We wanted to see the place,” says Brandon Boyle, gazing around the arena. “It’s a cross between the Forum . . . and the Superdome.”

UPPER CONCOURSE

Section 320, row 12, seats 5 and 6, $25.50 a game: Up in the rafters, the players don’t look much larger than cockroaches. You can blot out 6-foot-4 Rob Blake with your thumb. The only faces you can see are the ones that flash across the octagonal scoreboard.

But up here, Avendano’s girlfriend, Monica Diaz, sees the brighter side.

“At first I was skeptical because I thought our seats were so far away,” she says. “But, you know what, I can see the puck. I’m in the very last row and I have a good view.”

The couple also liked the short trip from Whittier--an 18-minute drive and a five-minute walk from the parking lot. After his initial shock, Avendano warms to his perch.

“You can see the players’ numbers pretty well,” he says. “So I guess this isn’t so bad.”

SUITE

Suite level A, $257,500 a year: There’s a party going on in the Anheuser-Busch suite, cold beer flowing from a tap.

“We’re the only suite that has one of those,” says Bob Brown, a regional general manager. “The only one in the whole building.”

A full buffet--fajitas, ribs, chicken wings--was laid across the granite counter just before game time. “Damn, we forgot to order hot dogs,” Brown says.

The game is played just below, the players coming into sharper focus at this height.

But hockey seems of secondary importance as the waiters stop by every few minutes to be sure everything is going well.

Brown couldn’t be happier.

“They’re killing us with service.”

PREMIERE SEATS

Section PS12, row 9, seats 16 and 17, $12,500 a year: Ziggy Palffy smacks a warmup shot off the post and it rings as clear as a bell from where the Nashes are sitting.

The Studio City couple had season tickets at the Forum for the past eight seasons and profess to a certain amount of sentimentalism at leaving their old haunt.

But they are clearly dazed by the joy of their new seats and the view they have just above the face-off circle. Their confusion is such that they forget about the servers scurrying through their section--they buy food at a stand and carry it down themselves.

This can only be considered bad form in the rarefied air of the Premiere seats.

“We’re getting used to this place,” Dave explains.

LOWER BOWL

Section 119, row 11, seat 19, $90 a game: Dr. Gary Milan should be the happiest guy in the arena.

A season-ticket holder for 30-some years at the Forum, Milan was given high priority when it came to getting seats at the Kings’ new home. He chose a pair on the aisle near center ice.

“I’d like for you to sit in my seat,” he says. “I want you to look at the goalie.”

When viewed at an angle through the sections of plexiglass that surround the rink, Boston goalie Robbie Tallas looks a little distorted, kind of like a Picasso painting.

“I see two left arms on him,” Milan complains. “This is horrible.”

“If you come into this building expecting a replica of the Forum, you are going to be disappointed,” says Lee Zeidman, vice president of operations, who spent 10 years working at the Inglewood arena.

END ZONE

Two folding chairs, beside the goal judge, $70 a game: No complaints from Helen Saiyan. Unless, of course, you’re the goal judge sitting in the booth beside her.

“I try to influence him,” she says. “It isn’t working.”

From where she sits, Saiyan can see every glint off every skate, every grimace on every face. Not only can she read the players’ lips, she can see their bridgework.

Pucks boom off the glass like gunshots. Every check into the boards sends a shudder through the fans at this low perspective.

It’s an utterly different experience for Saiyan, who sat in higher seats at the Forum.

“You get the feeling that you’re right in the net,” she says.

The Sherman Oaks woman hunches forward as Boston presses on the attack.

“You are the goalie,” she says. “You are him.”

FOX SPORTS SKY BOX

Last stool at the bar, Fox Sports Sky Box, free: Daryl Dunbar lives in Atlanta but visits Los Angeles often. He came to the game with friends--they had tickets, he didn’t.

“I was hoping I could buy a seat,” Dunbar says.

No such luck on a night when it seems that all of Los Angeles wants inside this building.

So Dunbar settles for the next best thing. There’s no cover to get into this futuristic sports bar at the edge of the arena. A 20-ounce ale costs $6.75 and, from his seat at a metallic counter, he can see no fewer than 19 televisions screens showing the game.

Dunbar cannot so much as see the ice, but on this night he doesn’t seem to mind.

“It’s not so bad,” he says. “There’s a little bit of an air of being in a new building. It’s exciting.”