A NEW START IS MUSIC TO THEIR EARS.

Byline: Karen Crouse

Just listen to the murmurs of the people

in the building,

look up at the scoreboard where the news is good, fate willing.

How

can they

lose?

The future is brighter,

there you can forget all the

failures, forget all the tears.

So go - downtown.

Things will be great now they're - downtown.

No finer place for sure - downtown.

Everything's waiting for them.

Forget Randy Newman's ``I Love L.A.'' It's so passe. Every new era deserves its own soundtrack. On the night the Kings cast off their past like a worn pair of paisley pants, we had a Clark oldie on our minds. Not Wendel Clark, mind you, but Petula.

Thirty-five years after she recorded ``Downtown,'' Clark's buoyant tune - with a little tweaking of the lyrics - would have been beautiful background music for the era that opened Wednesday.

The $375 million Staples Center is so much more than the Kings' new address. It's the marble and mortar from which they can shape a whole new identity, only miles apart from Sam McMaster's disastrous deal-making, Robbie Ftorek's psychedelic sweaters, Tom Webster's excruciating earaches, Marty McSorley's curved stick, Bruce McNall's crooked finances and Wayne Gretzky's lamentable departure.

The Kings' slate is as clean as the Staples Center's Terazzo tile, all 81,000 square feet of it. And that might turn out to be a greater home advantage for the Kings than Dodger Stadium, with its clay that settles oh-so-nicely into the baseball's seams, purportedly has been for L.A. pitchers.

Even in their darkest days, the Kings always could count on a few thousand hardcore fans for support and sustenance. Their christening against the Boston Bruins attracted the committed, the curious and the cliquish, 18,500 fans in all. The Kings did their best on the ice and behind the scenes to keep them coming back.

Rob Blake's fourth goal and eighth point tied the game at 1 midway through the second period. The score stayed that way until the 57th minute when the Bruins scored a goal on a power play. Jozef Stumpel scored in the penultimate minute to send the game into overtime.

From ``Phantom of the Opera'' star Davis Gaines' singing of the national anthem to South Park's Cartman spurring the fans on via the eight-sided video scoreboard, the Kings left no potential fan base uncovered.

Their attention to detail was downright Andy Murray-esque. It appeared to extend all the way to the weather. After all, what better place to come in out of the 90-degree heat than a one million square foot icebox?

The Staples Center, with its 55 restrooms, 23 refreshment stands and two sit-down eateries, could be described as ``unique, dramatic and full of small touches of luxury and convenience.'' In fact, those were the exact words used to describe the $16 million Forum when the Kings christened it on Dec. 30, 1967, in a game against the Philadelphia Flyers. That night began with owner Jack Kent Cooke commandeering the spotlight - as he was wont to do - to giddily inform the crowd of 14,366 that it was ``the happiest day'' of his life.

The Kings then took a little fizz off the celebration by getting shut out 2-0. Who knew it wasn't just passes the players with names like Eddie ``Jet'' Joyal were telegraphing that night?

The disappointing ending was a harbinger of decades to come. Indeed, it seemed like the only thing left standing tall at the end of some seasons were the building's 80 white exterior columns.

There were eerie parallels between the openings, then and now. There was a Van Impe skating for the other team in both instances - it was Ed in 1967 and his nephew Darren on Wednesday. And both times the Kings were facing a goaltender that wasn't technically the other team's best.

The Flyers rested Bernie Parent and played his backup, Doug Favell, after Favell had threatened to retire if his minutes weren't increased (he responded by stopping 25 Kings shots). On Wednesday, the Bruins went with Robbie Tallas while their No. 1 netminder, former King Byron Dafoe, remained unsigned.

Then there was the way the game started. The Kings got knocked down early Wednesday, the Bruins' Anson Carter scoring the first goal in the new building in the fifth minute of the first period.

Never mind 1967, as recently as last year, that would have sent the team into a tailspin.

But the Kings are a more upbeat, undeterred team under Murray, their first-year head coach. They settled down after Carter's score and struck on their third power play. The power play Murray has made the Kings practice for at least 20 minutes a day since the opening of training camp.

The Kings clearly are moving in the right direction. On this night of new beginnings, the Stanley Cup appeared, to quote Cooke quoting former Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, ``as inevitable as tomorrow. But perhaps not as imminent.''