King for a day

The site: L.A. Kings Downtown on Ice skating rink at Pershing Square.

The scene: Kids’ ice hockey clinic, where a couple of dozen novice and not-so-novice skaters are wielding pucks and sticks.

Average age: 8 years old* (*thirtysomething journalist excepted).

Exercise 1: Skating around the rink.

The trio of instructors gave a simple enough directive: Keep your ice skates vertical and your arms out front. Even so, the two dozen kids attending the hockey clinic at the Downtown on Ice skating rink were only partially successful.

There was a small pack of pint-sized Wayne Gretzky wannabes racing around the pygmy-sized rink as if they were already pro, but the rest of us were the Bad News Bears on ice, engaging in the usual chain-reaction falls and other Looney Tunes moves common to Southern Californians -- whose skates normally roll rather than glide.

This was just the beginning of an hourlong clinic designed to teach ice hockey basics: first skating; then skating with sticks; then skating, stick handling and shooting pucks. Available free to kids 6 to 14, the clinics will be offered nearly every Sunday through Jan. 19, when this L.A. version of New York’s Rockefeller Center closes for the season.

Exercise 2: Racing across the rink.

“You’re one, you’re two, you’re three,” one of the instructors said, singling us out and separating us into groups for a relay race.

My group -- No. 1 -- was a ragtag crew of coltish tweens and grade schoolers who could barely put one skate in front of the other. Letting go of the fiberglass walls ringing the rink, we had barely assembled into a crooked line when the Kings rep yelled, “Go!”

It wasn’t planned, but I was first. Pushing off and stumbling forward, I glanced left to check out the competition. Teams 2 and 3 were helmed by a pair of speed-demon 8-year-olds who, I later found out, had been playing amateur ice hockey for two years. Each completed a round trip to the starting line before I’d even made it to the end of the rink.

“Oh, man! We’re not going to get done ‘til 2020,” someone heckled behind my back. It was a teammate.

Exercise 3: Skating with sticks.

Everyone was given a stick and the simple instruction to hold on to it with both hands. The blade should be touching the ice, we were told before being sent across the rink and back. Easy. Sort of.

Exercise 4: Skating with sticks and pucks.

This was a two-part exercise, requiring each of us to maneuver the puck across the ice with our sticks on our own, then pass it back and forth to another player. The boys who’d been doing this awhile had no trouble; the rest of us were engaged in a graceless dance that had us quickstepping around the little orange disc, taking three swings for every hit.

Exercise 5: Taking a shot on goal.

The three instructors took their positions -- one on either side of the net and another playing goalie. One by one we were called out on the ice to pass the puck, then put a fast one by the goalie, who always seemed to be looking the other way.

Exercise 6: One-on-one scrimmage.

It was the moment we’d all been waiting for -- a chance to use our limited skills and really play a game. Once again, we were separated into two groups and given numbers, then asked to clear the ice until our number was called.

“Eight!” the Kings instructor yelled. Two young boys hit the ice running, the smaller of them scoring a quick goal to a chorus of excited, high-pitched screams.

“Three!” Like with Noah’s ark, another two players headed into the rink.

“Ten!” I was up, and it looked like a pretty fair match. My enemy: A pigtailed 9-year-old who was following my lead and doing a herky-jerky, unsteady sashay across the ice, attempting to hold on to the puck. I stole it away, only to lose it again when I inadvertently passed it to one of the instructors, who passed it back to my opponent. She caught it. The crowd went wild. I attempted to win it back, frantically pawing at the puck with my stick, but it was too late. In a scene straight out of “The Mighty Ducks,” she shot the puck between my legs. And scored.

Susan Carpenter can be contacted at susan.carpenter@latimes.com.

*

Ice hockey clinic

Where: L.A. Kings Downtown

on Ice, Pershing Square, 532

S. Olive St., Los Angeles

When: 10:30-11:30 a.m. Dec. 7, 21 and 28; Jan. 11, 18

Cost: Free. Advance sign-up required. Suggested for kids ages 6-14.

Info: (213) 847-4970 or www.laparks.org