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Why the Los Angeles Kings Are More Than Just a Hockey Team

Alan Bass, Hockeybuzz.com, May 28, 2012

Nothing against the New Jersey Devils, but we’ve been there before. The organization has won three Stanley Cups and has proven that they are capable of building a perennial contender in a city that is far from a hockey hotbed, according to the team’s attendance numbers in the last two decades. It’s old news. Enough already.

The Kings, though, man are they hot! They’re the next big thing! They’re…wait, weren’t we here before back in 1993? Just 19 years ago, we were talking about Wayne Gretzky, “The Great One,” playing alongside young gun Luc Robitaille, the kid with the 125-point season, and Rob Blake, the 22-year-old defenseman who is sure to have an illustrious and successful NHL career.

But now, instead of talking about the acquired Gretzky and the home grown Robitaille and Blake, we have the acquired Mike Richards and home grown Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty. Instead of the Kings sneaking into the playoffs and defeating a one, two, and three-seed in the 1993 playoffs, we’re talking about them doing the same thing in the 2012 playoffs.

Correlation? Yes. Causation? Perhaps not, but I’d argue it might be just that.

When hockey fans look at the history books, there is always one name there: Wayne Gretzky. And besides the fact that he failed to win a Stanley Cup with the Los Angeles Kings, the effect that he had on the Los Angeles hockey market is well documented, let alone his effect on all of American hockey as well. That trade is the major reason as to why the Kings are so important to the American scene at this moment.

Out of 27 players on the Kings current roster, all but two (Rob Scuderi and Willie Mitchell) were under 10 years old when Gretzky was traded from Edmonton to Los Angeles in 1988. And 19 of the 27 players were still under 10 when the Kings made their 1993 final run. Of those 19, six are Americans that surely felt some piece of the Gretzky trade as children – all still in their impressionable stage.

Before the Gretzky trade, hockey was so unpopular in Los Angeles, you couldn’t even call it a joke – a joke is known by at least a few people. In fact, a comedian once said at the time, “What time is the Kings game?”, “Depends, what time you can get there?” After Gretzky’s arrival, not only did attendance increase, it exploded. The team’s popularity was equal to that of the NBA’s Lakers, USC football, UCLA basketball, and more. The sport not only took hold in Los Angeles, but hockey became a national sport in the United States, something it hadn’t been since the NHL expanded to six American cities in 1967.

So why is this relevant to the Kings and their upcoming Stanley Cup final matchup against the Devils? Between 1988 and 1993, when the Kings became the rock stars of American sports, the younger generation began to take note. More American children began playing a game that most had never heard of just a few years prior. More and more NHL draftees are born and raised in California – a place where your first impression would be Hollywood, not professional hockey.

But just like that, as the children of that era reach the prime of their NHL careers, the Kings are right back where they once were, again as an underdog that shouldn’t be here. And this time, in a time of social media and widespread sports fanatics, their success, perhaps even culminating in a Stanley Cup championship, will have an even greater positive effect on the young American kids just tuning into hockey for the first time.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
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