Kings Will Go On Without the Bright Light of Bailey

Day One of the Kings’ training camp, and not a question about the season.

There were plenty of television trucks parked outside HealthSouth training center in El Segundo, and a small room crammed full with reporters, but the topic wasn’t hockey.

“Normally you’re asking questions about, ‘How’s this guy performing?’ or ‘Who do you think is going to be on this line?’ ‘Who’s going to play on the power play?’ and so on,” King Coach Andy Murray said. “We’re talking about a tragedy for all mankind that happened [Tuesday].”

And a tragedy that hit the Kings directly. Director of pro scouting Ace Bailey, 53, and amateur scout Mark Bavis, 31, were on United Airlines Flight 175 that slammed into the southern twin tower of the World Trade Center in the terrorist attacks on the United States.

“You think about, ‘What about the people in the buildings and the planes?”’ said King forward Glen Murray. “You never really thought about if it’s going to be someone close. I guess people all around, everywhere, are going to have someone that they know, or a friend that knows.”

It wasn’t just the Kings. When someone such as Bailey, who has been around pro hockey for 32 years as a player and scout, dies, it is felt throughout the NHL.

“All these people grew up together, we’ve known each other all our lives,” New York Ranger President Glen Sather said. “It’s a small world--especially in the hockey world.”

That’s why Sather’s phone has been ringing so much. Calls from Edmonton. From Toronto. From New York to Los Angeles. So many friends for Bailey.

“He had a knack for making everybody feel good around him,” Sather said.

Sather played with Bailey on the Edmonton Oil Kings junior hockey team.

They played together in Boston. And Sather, as general manager of the Edmonton Oilers, brought Bailey to Edmonton for the end of Bailey’s career, then kept him on as a scout.

“He worked hard, loved his game, loved his sport,” Sather said. As a scout, he sought players who shared those qualities.

“He always looked for the edge in people, people who had added value, people who had enthusiasm.”

Bill Tuele, the Oilers’ vice president for public relations who had known Bailey for 30 years, called him a “Runyonesque character.”

“If you wanted to keep up with him, you might be able to do it for a little while, but not for a long while,” Tuele said.

Bailey was playing with the Oilers during Wayne Gretzky’s first year in Edmonton, and he took the future superstar along for what Tuele described as a father-son relationship. They remained close, and Gretzky told several stories about Bailey in his book.

Here’s one: “One time Ace had rented a house through the Oiler organization but hadn’t yet seen it. He was having a few beers with the boys the night he was supposed to move in and so when he finally went to take a look at it, his vision was a little clouded. He tried to fit the key in and it didn’t work. Pretty soon, Ace was trying to spring the garage door by bouncing up and down on it and Cowboy Flett was up on the roof trying to get in through a skylight. That’s about when the cops showed up. Turns out they had the wrong house. That house belonged to an old retired couple who were found huddling in the middle of the living room together.”

And this one: “One Christmas, Ace’s wife told him to go out and get them a Christmas tree. Well, Ace looked and looked but never found one he wanted--until he got back home. There it was, the perfect Christmas tree, right in his own backyard. We cut it down, brought it inside and his wife never knew the difference. But he told me later. He called me over the week after Christmas to try to help him nail it back in place.”

And Bailey wasn’t afraid to get into a scrap, if that’s what was called for.

That’s why, when Tuele and some associates learned that Bailey was aboard one of the hijacked flights, one of them said he was certain there had to have been at least one dead hijacker on the plane before it crashed.

Bailey had been in more than his share of close calls, but as Tuele said, “He always walked away dusting his knuckles.”

Boston Bruin center Carl Corazzini played hockey at Boston University when Bavis coached there. “I knew Mark since I was about 10 years old,” Corazzini said. “He and his brother Mike used to coach me. It’s tough. The whole thing is tough, but when you know someone who was a victim, it’s so much tougher.”

Andy Murray had the theme for his pre-camp address planned for weeks. He wanted to talk about how much depth the team has now, thanks in large part to its young, homegrown players. He wanted to salute the scouts.

He didn’t know it would also be a eulogy.

Murray called Bailey the “social director” of the team whenever he was around. He recalled how excited Bavis was on draft day when the Kings picked two of the players he had scouted, and Bavis accepted high-fives and handshakes for his work.

And he even turned his thoughts to hockey.

“We’re professionals,” Murray said. “This is a major tragedy. You think a lot about it, you think about the two guys getting on the plane yesterday, excited to get to training camp, excited to see the prospects that they helped bring to our team, excited to see them on the ice. And then you see this kind of tragedy happen, and you think of what they must have gone through. It’s tough. But they were dedicated to their profession, and they would want us getting on the ice and getting after it.”

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J.A. Adande can be reached at: ja.adande@latimes.com.