In NHL Season, He’s Chairman of the Bored

I came outside the other day shortly after taking a call from Dwyre to discover my neighbor, Aida, dusting the outside of her car. This got me to thinking about hockey, and other things that are a total waste of time.

As far as I’m concerned the hockey season is over, and yet they’re telling me now the Kings and Ducks haven’t started.

I contacted Cambridge University’s Apathy Society to see if they could help me with my lack of interest in the sport, and discovered no one has updated the Web site since May 6, 1998.

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I CALLED the Los Angeles Kings Booster Club hotline to see if they could pump me up, and I got a recorded message telling me the planned get-together in Las Vegas has been canceled because everyone is more interested in college football. I could have told them that.

While on the Internet, I typed in “www.puckhead.com” and received this message: “You have reached a domain name which has been reserved by one of our clients and is still being created.” I would imagine Stu Nahan has been busy with his pregame Dodger duties.

Nahan, of course, is a big hockey honk and he has two seats for every Kings’ game. Michael Roth, Staples Center publicist, says he likes to join Nahan when he can, because he feels badly for him sitting there all alone.

“Do you believe in miracles?” Roth wanted to know.

Are you telling me Salma Hayek is a Kings’ season ticket holder?

“No,” said Roth, and he could have lied. After all, he is a publicist.

What about the miracle? I asked.

“You don’t remember what happened to the Kings last season?”

It’s a miracle anyone does.

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I LOOK at these hockey people in L.A. and they’re all Murrays to me.

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I WOULD imagine it will come out eventually, but sources tell me that once it dawned on NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue he’d be obligated to attend the NHL All-Star game here if the Super Bowl was played in Pasadena, there was no way he was going to pull the game out of New Orleans.

That reminds me, I’m going to have to talk to Dwyre about going to the Super Bowl that NHL All-Star weekend, or make vacation plans to help Aida dust her car.

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I WOULD have had Barry Bonds’ kids add one thing to the “Just pitch to our daddy” note they held up for the ESPN cameras: “so Chris Berman will shut up.”

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YOU CAN’T find a baseball player capable of getting four hits in every 10 times at the plate, but the Astros elected to walk Bonds, trailing by a run and with runners on first and second base. Jeff Kent then followed with a two-run single.

It’s always dangerous when managers or coaches start thinking too much.

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NEVADA LAS VEGAS has opened the season 0-4, a clear indication Coach John Robinson hasn’t gotten over being snubbed by USC’s Mike Garrett when it came time to being invited to this year’s “Salute To Troy” picnic to honor Robinson’s 1976 Rose Bowl championship Trojan team. So you can imagine how much Garrett will like this: UNLV’s last defeat knocked Robinson off the list of top 10 active coaches based on winning percentage. Robinson is now 11th at .684 (115-52-4).

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WHO WOULD you rather have as your starting quarterback?

A year ago, the vote seemed to be swinging in Jason Thomas’ favor, the former USC recruit who went to UNLV, but right now it appears Thomas and the Trojans’ Carson Palmer are in a dead heat to determine who will be the bigger disappointment.

UNLV had conducted a Heisman Trophy campaign to gain Thomas attention before this season, and NFL draft specialist Mel Kiper had him ranked as his top prospect.

Thomas, playing for a winless team, has three touchdown passes--one more than Palmer--and one rushing touchdown--one more than Palmer, but the same number of interceptions--six, while Palmer has completed 84 of 146 passes and Thomas only 38 of 90.

I’ll take UCLA’s Cory Paus, who has yet to have a pass intercepted.

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I WOULD imagine it was difficult agreeing or disagreeing with J.A. Adande’s column Wednesday, which claimed singers have done a lousy job at local sporting events singing “God Bless America” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

As a rule around here, no one gets to the game in time to hear the singing.

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SO NOW we have TV Guy joining Movie Guy to direct the Dodgers, Dan Evans, the new Dodger executive vice president and general manager, beginning the season doing studio work for the Fox affiliate in Chicago. I was pulling for Weather Girl, Jillian Barberie, who was working right here in the Fox affiliate. It seems to me the guys would pay a lot more attention to her than the TV Guy.

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TWO WEEKS ago “The Practice” was the No. 1 rated show in L.A. despite going up against SIMERS & plaschke in the same time slot. This past week, however, “The Practice” dropped out of the top five, the audience now obviously torn between Dylan McDermott and plaschke.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in an e-mail from Dr. Trojan Defender:

“This is to let you know Trojan fans do not find you amusing. I, and several others, are making it our mission to let all Trojan fans know how you are making fun of us. We’re going to read your column daily to monitor what you say about USC. If you continue these silly columns, we will be reading, we will talk to your newspaper and your paper will not let you continue.”

The newspaper is going to be very surprised when you tell them you’ve been reading everything I’ve written.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com