KINGS CREW KEEPING BUSY OFF ICE.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH Media

On his 66th birthday Tuesday, Bob Miller celebrated by not boarding a plane to fly to Denver for the Kings' 2004-05 NHL season opener.

Instead, he drove over to the Staples Center broadcast facility, and joined Jim Fox and Nick Nickson to record some commentary for a series of ``Classic Kings'' games that will air over the next two months on FSN West, to fill the holes in the TV schedule left by the current NHL players-owners contract impasse.

``We knew this was coming for months, but it's really kind of weird now,'' said Miller, the Hall of Fame play-by-play man who'd be starting his 32nd year as a Kings broadcaster, and added jokingly: ``I think my wife hates it more than me, having to have me around so much.''

A similar situation 10 years ago, when the last NHL labor troubles ran 103 days and cut the season from 84 to 48 regular-season games, at least gives the broadcasters some reference point on what to do and how to prepare this time.

Miller, who, like Fox, is paid by the team only for the TV games they broadcast, says he's been drawing up new player cards for all the Western Conference teams, figuring if the league resumes after the first of the year as it did 10 years ago, it probably will stick to an in-conference schedule.

``I'll be ready whenever they are,'' he said. ``I'm hoping it's in January, but realistically, you just don't know.''

He'll take the opportunity this weekend to go back to his alma mater, Iowa, to see the Hawkeyes play Ohio State in a college football game - something he says he hasn't been able to do in 34 years because of the hockey season - then drive up to the ``Field of Dreams'' site for a visit.

Nickson, the radio play-by-play man who worked many years with Miller as the analyst when the team did simulcasts, has been rummaging through his garage and archiving tapes of games the two did together in the 1970s and '80s. Nickson, who does a lot of behind-the-scenes work with the team's front office and radio network affiliates, will continue to be paid.

``I'm trying to treat this as an extension of the offseason,'' said Nickson, starting his 24th season with the team. ``I'm just looking at it as that we're one day closer to be playing again.

``We all miss it - the fans, the broadcasters, everyone involved - and it's this time of year when it really hits home.''

Fox, starting his 15th season as a broadcaster, says he and his wife Suzie haven't been able to go home to Toronto for Christmas since 1978 because of his hockey obligations. This year looks as though it will happen.

``I'm trying to stay very positive about it, because I have no control over any of it,'' said Fox. ``I know that's kind of the Dr. Phil answer, but that's how you get through it, trying to stay busy.''

Before Tuesday's taping of a series of ``Classic Kings'' games - the first of which airs tonight at 7:30, featuring Wayne Gretzky's first game in L.A. back in 1988 - Fox, Miller and Nickson watched an episode of FSN's ``Totally Hockey'' taped with Bill Macdonald asking NHLPA senior director Ted Saskin some very pointed questions about the lockout situation.

As a former player who stays very connected to the game, Fox has been used frequently as a TV guest analyst on news shows during the lockout. When asked, he's not shy about giving his opinions on what needs to be done to end this.

``Collective bargaining has been part of our system in the United States to get things done,'' said Fox. ``I'm just trying to educate people who ask me about the whole situation without taking sides.''

--The fake season: In the search for meaningful work during the lockout, Fox and Kings left winger Luc Robitaille have landed a gig with a budding West L.A.-based cable channel that isn't going to just sit back and let the NHL season go by.

Video-game geared G4TechTV - Channel 354 on DirecTV, also available on Adelphia, Time Warner and Comcast cable systems - is playing the entire 2004-05 NHL schedule on EA's NHL 2005, turning the computer loose to run each game, then taking the scores and highlights and packaging them into a daily news update show.

The series, G4 Sports ``NHL Updates,'' airs daily at 4 p.m., and the period-by-period results are available on the channel's Website (www.g4techtv.com) during the time the actual games would have been played each day. It also has stats and a video highlight package on the site.

So, if you're scoring at home, the Kings lost their virtual opener to the Avalanche, 3-1, opening the season in a virtual tie for last in the division with the rival Mighty Ducks, who lost in overtime to Calgary, 4-3.

Bob Borgen, who has produced the Kings' games for FSN the last 14 seasons, also got involved with the project and says it's been a blast.

``When video games first came out, they tried to look like TV broadcasts, but we've been trying for the last 10 years to make TV look more like video games with the camera angles and glowing pucks and graphics,'' said Borgen. ``But here, being able to spin the cameras to anywhere you want, the highlights are unbelievable - better than the TV game highlights.''

Borgen comes in every day to read the computer results, then begins picking out highlights and writing the scripts for Fox and Robitaille.

``This has been too much fun not to do,'' he said.

SOUND BYTES 

WHAT SMOKES

--After working on the project for about three years, sorting through thousands of the almost three million photographs stored in the Los Angeles Public Library vaults, freelance writer David Davis has selected 270 for an exhibit entitled ``Play by Play: A Century of L.A. Sports Photography, 1888-1989'' which opens Saturday and runs until March at the Central Library's Getty Gallery and First Floor Galleries. The exhibit begins with some of the earliest days of baseball and boxing and goes up through the ``Showtime'' Lakers and Fernandomania. Many photos are from the old Los Angeles Herald Examiner collection, while others are from the Hollywood Citizen and the Valley Times. Some have not been seen for decades, such as shots from Joe Louis fighting at the old Wrigley Field, O.J. Simpson in the 1984 Olympic torch relay (with wife Nicole near him in the background), protesters and families being evicted from Chavez Ravine in the late '50s when the Dodgers came West, as well as the late James Roark's Pulitzer Prize-nominated image of Rick Monday rescuing the American flag at Dodger Stadium in 1976 (seen above). ``It amazes me how many modern-day issues are wrapped around L.A. sports history,'' Davis said. ``Southern California's sports culture speaks to many topics, and there's Hollywood's fascination with the nexus between sports and entertainment, plus the rise of the female athlete. This exhibit celebrates L.A.'s rich and diverse history, from May Sutton Bundy to Babe Didrickson to Jackie Robinson to John Wooden, from Wilt Chamberlain and Magic Johnson to Lisa Fernandez.'' A companion book published by Angel City Press is available at the Library Store, and the photos can be viewed and purchased by going to the library's photo online database. More information: [phone] and www.lapl.org/events/playbyplay/index.html.

WHAT CHOKES

--The technical glitches that occurred Saturday when Fox tried to switch to the start of the Dodgers-Cardinals playoff game on Channel 11 while moving the end of the Yankees-Twins playoff games to its FX cable channel were simply inexcusable. FX isn't able to regionalize its coverage, so the Dodgers' game was on both channels long enough for L.A. and St. Louis viewers to miss the end of the Yankees' victory. On Wednesday, Fox used its FSN cable partner to air the opener of the Astros-Cardinals series head-to-head against the network's coverage of the Yankees-Red Sox in most markets, instead of moving one of the games to a daytime start and take a ratings hit. For future game overlaps, Fox will put the Astros-Cardinals into the daytime spot Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday, if necessary.

--Even though L.A. isn't within the 75-mile radius of San Diego, the past two Chargers home games on DirecTV's ``NFL Sunday Ticket'' pay package have been blacked out because the team didn't sell out 72 hours before kickoff. The archaic NFL TV rule shouldn't apply to this pay service, but until someone realizes these two distinct cities aren't really in the same market, it'll apparently continue this way.

--FSN used a ``Mike Stoops Cam'' to follow around the Arizona coach during the Wildcats college football game at UCLA last Saturday, but the network could have used a spotter to find Bruins coach Karl Dorrell at the beginning of the game. Instead, while broadcasters Barry Tompkins and Petros Papadakis talked about Dorrell, the camera showed receivers coach Dino Babers, who does bear a resemblance to Dorrell, but ...

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

no caption (Rick Monday rescuing the American flag at Dodger Stadium in 1976)

Box:

SOUND BYTES (see text)

By Tom Hoffarth