On Oscar’s Turf, Stanley Seizes the Day

Nina McCormick snapped a picture, then walked up to the athletic-looking guy holding the big silver cup in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Luc Robitaille,” the man replied, with a grin. And the cup’s name is Stanley. Stanley Cup. The real one that they gave to the Detroit Red Wings this past season.

McCormick, who hails from the Motor City, blushed redder than her hometown hockey team’s insignia. “I don’t know all the names,” the retired General Motors worker said. “But my son goes to all the games. He was right there when they won it.”

McCormick could be forgiven, since not far away were a fake Spiderman, fake Wonder Woman, fake Yoda and fake Laurel and Hardy.

But this was the real Robitaille, who played 12 seasons with the Los Angeles Kings before heading to Detroit as a free agent last year, and still calls this city home.

Nothing--not even being unrecognized in Hollywood--could spoil the old tradition of giving each member of the championship team 24 hours to do what he wants with the coveted chalice.

Robitaille hoisted it on Jurassic Park-The Ride, at Universal Studios. Next, he held it aloft in front of the famed Chinese theater, then trekked to the Hollywood sign with it before parading it into Dodger Stadium, where he held it up at home plate before the game started.

“Is that the real thing?” asked Don Fennessey, 45, of Edmonton, Canada, as Robitaille put the trophy in the mouth of Bruce, the mechanical shark from Jaws, at Universal.

“I’ve seen it before,” assured Fennessey, whose team, the Oilers, held that trophy five times.

Robitaille grinned like a child. “It’s surreal,” he said. “It’s been an amazing weekend. These are some of the best memories of my life.”

After more than a few double-takes, reaction from fans was enthusiastic.

“Everybody knows what that trophy means,” Robitaille said. Asked if he regretted not winning the trophy with the Kings, Robitaille shrugged. “Things happen the way they happen in life,” he said. “For me, I’m just happy I won the cup.”

Robitaille, along with his two sons, wife, parents, brother and about 30 other kin and friends, had the Jurassic Park ride all to themselves for more than an hour before parading en masse through the theme park.

He mugged for photos, signed autographs and even let a few fans touch the trophy--always under the stern gaze of a National Hockey League official in a dark suit and white gloves.

“We chose to come back and share it with L.A.,” said Robitaille’s wife, Stacia. “He misses the fans.”

And the fans apparently miss him.

“It was a big mistake to let him go,” said Rick Isaac of Agoura Hills, who waited two hours at Universal to get Robitaille’s autograph. “His goodwill with the fans is what it’s all about. That’s what you remember.”

Emilio Sandoval of Simi Valley got a Kings puck and jersey signed by Robitaille, and was so excited that he asked Stacia to sign it too.

“We’re waiting for the Kings to bring it now,” he said. “But Luc will always be a King.”

Though the sight of the glimmering cup sometimes elicited confused stares, it was enough to cause Dave Knapp, a Detroit native transplanted to San Diego, to abandon his wife and children on Hollywood Boulevard and run for it.

“I saw the cup, I was like, ‘Oh, my God. You take the kids. I’m going after the cup,’ ” a breathless Knapp said.

He caught up with the cup and Robitaille on the upper level of the Hollywood and Highland entertainment complex.

By then, his wife, Janet, trailing 5-year-old twins Erica and Emily, and her son, Larry, 10, had caught up with him in time to snap family photos with an obliging Robitaille.

It was then that Dave Knapp placed his trembling fingertips on hockey’s Holy Grail.

“I all but kissed it and cried in it,” he said.