These Days, Penalty Is Not Playing Game at All

The Rodney Dangerfield line about going to a fight and a hockey game breaking out could have been inspired by a game at Philadelphia between the Kings and Flyers on March 11, 1979.

Of the game’s then-NHL record 372 penalty minutes, 352 were incurred in the first period because of a bench-emptying melee that dragged on for 14 minutes after the Kings’ Randy Holt and the Flyers’ Blake Dunlop first exchanged words, then blows.

In Don Merry’s story in The Times the next day, the Flyers’ Ken Linseman was quoted as saying, “I didn’t want to see it end so soon. We don’t get a chance to fight much anymore.”

Ah, don’t you miss hockey?

*

Trivia time: How many penalty minutes did Wayne Gretzky have in his career?

*

Got to hit something: The late, great New York sportswriter Jimmy Cannon once described a hockey puck as “a hard rubber disk that hockey players strike when they can’t hit one another.”

*

Easy listening: Former NBA coach Gene Shue, when he was with the Baltimore Bullets in the 1970s, once said of listening to hockey on the radio: “It’s like listening to a description of one continuous mistake.”

*

Not so lucky after all: Jay Sigel, competing in the Champions Tour SBC Classic at Valencia Country Club, figured his chances looked good, what with the final round falling on March 13. His favorite number is 13.

When he won the 1997 Bruno’s Memorial Classic, he was in the 13th group. He was born on Nov. 13. He got his first hole in one on the 13th hole on July 13. He was the 13th player to win the U.S. and British amateur titles. And his shoe size is 13.

However, Sigel will be lucky to finish 13th at Valencia after shooting an opening-round 81 Friday.

*

Accurate self-analysis: The four-day Sahara Run, which started Friday, consists of four separate road races covering 74.6 miles in Tunisia. The 130 runners must brave sandstorms in the desert heat and also face the risk of snakebites.

Hans van Ee, a 44-year-old Dutch entrant, said, “People tell me I’m crazy to be doing this, and I agree with them.”

*

Looking back: On this day in 1985, Larry Bird scored 60 points, including Boston’s final 16, to set a Celtic single-game scoring record in a 126-115 victory over Atlanta. Bird, in breaking Kevin McHale’s team record of 56 set nine days earlier, made 22 of 36 shots and 15 of 16 free throws.

*

Trivia answer: In his 20-year career, Gretzky had 577 minutes. His most in one season was 59 with the 1982-83 Edmonton Oilers.

*

And finally: When the Kings were owned by the late Jack Kent Cooke, he once complained about poor attendance at the Forum by saying, “There are 800,000 Canadians living in the L.A. area, and I’ve discovered why they left Canada. They hate hockey.”

*

Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.