Cooke could be rinky-dink, but he broke the ice in L.A.

A Los Angeles-area hockey team is playing for the Stanley Cup and our founding father in such things is looking on, certainly with great interest, from the afterlife.

Whether Jack Kent Cooke is watching from above or below, however, is another issue.

Most of those who worked for him in the golden days of the Fabulous Forum would probably check the “below” box, but with a smile for the memories.

Now that the Los Angeles Ducks of Anaheim are within a slap shot or two of the sport’s Holy Grail, it seems only right to remind area hockey fans of where it all started in the Southland.

Cooke was a self-made man, a Canadian who survived by selling soap and encyclopedias in the Depression years of the early 1930s.

When he died some 60 years later, on April 6, 1997, at 84, he had become one of the most notable and memorable sports owners ever, having lived the life of a billionaire.

He had built the Forum in Inglewood with his own money, had his Lakers in the NBA Finals six times and won once. Eventually, he won three Super Bowls as owner of the Washington Redskins, and acquired enough wealth to survive five marriages with four women. One divorce, presided over by Judge Wapner, cost him $42 million.

The Lakers and Redskins were only part of the story. A year after he bought the Lakers from Bob Short for $5.2 million, he also acquired one of six NHL expansion franchises.

The man from Hamilton, Ontario, was living a dream. Cooke and L.A. had a hockey team, the Kings, named for the kind of royalty he thought he saw in his mirror.

Of course, the Kings were generally lousy and, 40 years later, still are. If the Ducks win the Stanley Cup, that will make the all-time L.A.-area score: Ducks 1, Kings 0.

Cooke eventually sold the Kings to Jerry Buss, who sold them to Bruce McNall, who eventually went to jail for overstating the value of a coin collection that might have been acquired near the bases of various parking meters.

In the midst of financial crisis, McNall’s usual state, he gave away the store by allowing, for about $25 million in real coin, the NHL to put a franchise 35 miles down the road in Anaheim.

The Ducks were born and, for much of the time since then, the Kings’ goose has been comparatively cooked.

Cooke was the grandfather of it all. He was also a character out of a Broadway play, a Sunshine Boy who was miserly, quirky, arrogant, elitist and incredibly successful. There is not one Jack Kent Cooke story that sums him up. There are 5,000.

Bob Miller is a Hall of Fame hockey announcer, who still does Kings TV games. His onetime sidekick, and longtime area broadcaster, is Dan Avey. Both have stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Neither has ever met, nor will ever meet, anyone like Cooke.

Their stories flow freely.

Avey: “We had a custodian at the Forum named Vincent Ramirez. One day, he was cleaning around a kiosk and found a $20 bill. He put it in an envelope and left it with a note to Mr. Cooke on where he had found it. Cooke called him and told him he was proud of that kind of honesty and to expect something extra at pay time. When his next check came, he opened the envelope and found an autographed picture of Cooke.”

Miller: “I took the play-by-play job in 1973 and went to Mr. Cooke’s house to sign the contract. I rented a car, a little Plymouth Omega, $14.95 a day. His home office looked out on his driveway where I parked the car, so his people told me to be sure not to say that I had rented it on his tab. We met, he looked out and asked whose car that was. I said it was mine, like I owned it, and he said, ‘Well, good. I like little cars. I have two of them myself. A Mercedes and a Maserati.’ ”

Avey: “He had a heart attack one time in the Forum Club. Dr. [Robert] Kerlan was there and got him over in the corner and basically did CPR and saved his life. Later, we were talking about it and he said, ‘Bob ripped my shirt, you know. These are hand-made. Do you have any idea how much they cost?’ ”

Miller: “I’m doing a game in Montreal with Rich Marotta and we have Rich go down between periods and interview a player on the ice. I’m upstairs and the director keeps giving me the sign to stretch it out, keep talking. Turns out Marotta’s microphone had gone dead, and so I have to go on and on for five minutes. Finally they get his mike working, I send it down to him and our phone rings in the booth. The director listens, hangs up and tells me Mr. Cooke had called. ‘He said to tell you to stop hogging the mike.’ ”

Avey: “He let me negotiate some Laker contracts for him when he was gone. He always had a figure, and then a higher final-offer figure. I asked him one time if I got the guy to sign for the lower number, if he would split the difference with me. He said, ‘Now that’s great thinking, Danny. That’s the way I want you to approach things. No.’ ”

Miller: “He basically looked upon a game telecast as three hours of commercial ad time. He was always after me to mention season-ticket sales. I would see him, down there in his seat, with a bug in his ear, listening to me and watching me through his binoculars. If I went too long without mentioning season-ticket sales, he’d call the booth. I became like Pavlov’s dogs. I’d hear a phone ring seven rows away, anybody’s phone, and I’d say, ‘And don’t forget fans, season tickets are on sale right now.’ ”

Miller said that, on days when Cooke drove himself to the Forum offices, Cooke’s chauffeur, Eddie Parr, would be Paul Revere for the office staff, running down the ramp and through the halls, yelling, “Mr. Cooke is coming! Mr. Cooke is coming!”

Avey remembered that often when he and Miller were called into Cooke’s office, Cooke referred to them, semi-affectionately, as “You two boobs.”

Avey, a practical joker, once got the last word. Parr told him that Cooke had ordered a “surprise” party for his own birthday, and Avey was to pick up the cake. So he did, and upon Cooke’s arrival and feigned surprise, the cake was unveiled. One side said, “Happy Birthday, Mr. Cooke.” The other side said, “Wilson Meats.”

Cooke looked at that and demanded to know what it was all about.

To which Avey replied, “You told us, Mr. Cooke, to get everything sponsored.”

Thus was the lineage of hockey in Southern California. Jack Kent Cooke was the sire and along the way, his offspring included names and moments, from Marcel Dionne, Dave Taylor and Rogie Vachon to Wayne Gretzky, Luc Robitaille and Marty McSorley’s curved stick.

Now, there well could be a Stanley Cup, but one achieved down the freeway. Which raises the question of what in hell Jack Kent Cooke would say about that.

Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns, go to latimes.com/dwyre.