NOWHERE BUT UP FROM HERE.Byline: KEVIN MODESTII hope our friendly neighborhood ice-hockey team won't take the following as an insult because the tone is meant to be optimistic, the message that there's nowhere to go but up. The Kings are the worst franchise in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. professional sports The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. . Someone has to be the worst right now, and it can't be the Clippers anymore. So who else could it be? The Clippers and Lakers are playoff teams. So are the Sparks. The Dodgers are a playoff team, and the Angels open every season with optimism. Chivas USA is in the playoffs, and the Galaxy won the MLS See multilevel security. championship last season. Believe it or not, recently the Galaxy was scoring a couple of goals a game. None of that can be said about the Kings. The Ducks are widely touted as favorites for next spring's Stanley Cup Stanley Cup: see hockey, ice. Stanley Cup Trophy awarded annually to the winning team of the National Hockey League championship. Named for its donor, the Canadian governor-general Frederick Arthur Stanley, Lord Stanley of Preston . That definitely can't be said about the Kings. And, if you're considering other kinds of sports franchises, hapless Hollywood Park Hollywood Park may be several places:
Not even that can be said with any certainty about the Kings. The Kings? Two weeks into a Let's Not Let's Not is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in Boston University Graduate Journal in December 1954. It was written for no payment as a favour to the journal, and later appeared in the collection Buy Jupiter. Call It Rebuilding season under new general manager Dean Lombardi This article or section has multiple issues: * It needs to be expanded. Please help [ improve the article] or discuss these issues on the talk page. Dean Lombardi (born 1958 in Holyoke, Massachusetts) is president and general manager of the NHL's Los Angeles Kings. and coach Marc Crawford Marc Crawford (born February 13, 1961 in Belleville, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian National Hockey League head coach of the Los Angeles Kings and former forward for the Vancouver Canucks. , they have a 3-4 record that reflects victories over the sub-.500 St. Louis Blues, New York Islanders The New York Islanders are a professional ice hockey team based in Uniondale, a hamlet located on Long Island in Town of Hempstead, Nassau County, New York, United States. and Phoenix Coyotes The Phoenix Coyotes are a professional ice hockey team based in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). . Tenth in the conference last year, they're tied for 10th again. Having traded away point-a-game center Pavol Demitra, they don't have a scorer among the league's top 20. Fans are tuning out, Monday's loss to the Red Wings red wings see combretum platypetalum. in front of 17,414 marking the first time a Detroit game failed to fill Staples Center since the Kings moved there in 1999, and a recent Dallas Stars game's 14,167 marking a five-year low for any Kings home game. Newspapers aren't sending reporters on the road anymore. And this is the god's-honest truth: A big sports fan just walked past me, saw what I was writing about and asked in utter seriousness, ``Has the hockey season started?'' It used to be that Angelenos who ignored the Kings were called hockey-haters. Now, as a fourth straight nonplayoff season looms, they should be called discriminating. For the Kings, the plot of this afternoon's home game against the Ducks is: Win, or risk losing the city. ``I think success breeds attendance in California,'' said Rob Blake, the 36-year-old defenseman who is a King for the second time after signing as a free agent. ``Maybe the (roster) turnover at the end of season changed things. We have to bring those people back by winning.'' Blake said this Saturday after practice in El Segundo. But any King might have said it in most of the franchise's 40 seasons. We've been conditioned by the past decade's Tim Leiweke-led front office to unfulfilled promises. So fans will be slow to book seats on a bandwagon scheduled for departure in a couple of years. The run to the Stanley Cup final with Wayne Gretzky is so long ago that if you had turned old enough to drink that season, you'll turn old enough to be president this season. Since 1993, 15 other teams (that is, most other teams) have been to the final, two of which (Anaheim and Florida) joined the league since '93. Worst pro sports franchise in L.A. Nowhere to go but up. The selling point for this season is the boy Kings -- 19-year-old center Anze Kopitar, 24-year-old center Michael Cammalleri and 24-year-old left wing Alexander Frolov, the team's top three scorers, and 21-year-old center Patrick O'Sullivan. The hope for those willing to keep playing the Wait 'Til Next Year routine is the new NHL NHL Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, see there landscape that creates a better chance for rapid improvement. There hasn't been a repeat Stanley Cup champion in eight years, the league's longest stretch of parity since World War II. The post- lockout lockout, intentional closing up of a company, factory, or shop by an employer to prevent employees from working during a strike or labor dispute. The term lockout agreement will permit teams to sign free agents who are in their prime instead of their 30s. The plan, then, is to polish those kids, keep the payroll flexible, and pick up some stars in the next two summers. Which means fans are asked to have confidence in Lombardi (who built the San Jose franchise) and Crawford (who coached Colorado to the 1996 Stanley Cup), after years of putting blind faith in beloved ex-player Dave Taylor and good-guy Andy Murray. ``I think our young players are going to be stars,'' Blake said. ``Those kids are going to be here for a while. They (management) have a plan. That's one of the main reasons I wanted to come back.'' Can the Kings be winners again while Blake is still skating? ``Hopefully,'' he said, smiling. The question is what fans will put up with in the meantime Adv. 1. in the meantime - during the intervening time; "meanwhile I will not think about the problem"; "meantime he was attentive to his other interests"; "in the meantime the police were notified" meantime, meanwhile in a region where every other team is a winner. ``When you have a group (of players) that is young, you have to exercise some patience from within,'' Crawford said Saturday. ``Fans don't have to exercise patience. That's not part of the deal.'' Worst pro franchise in town. Nowhere to go but up, maybe. heymodesti(AT_SIGN)aol.com (818) 713-3616 CAPTION(S): photo, box Photo: The Kings' 3-4 record reflects a victory over the sub-.500 St.Louis Blues on Oct. 7 at Staples Center. Juan Ocampo/Getty Images Box: KINGS vs. DUCKS - Rich Hammond |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion