Roy Mlakar.

Roy Mlakar is one of those guys who likes to snap his fingers and move his arms around when he talks. He looks and sounds like a man's man, a guy who enjoys sitting on a bar stool, drinking beer and talking sports.

He can be a tough boss, according to those who work for him, the type who will bring you behind closed doors and talk, eyeball to eyeball. He'll fire someone for not working hard enough, but he's also the kind of boss who will take care of the travel arrangements for a worker to fly home for her mother's funeral, as he recently did, say his employees.

If you had to draw a picture of a man who runs a professional hockey team, it would probably include a lot of Mlakar. As executive vice president of the L.A. Kings Ltd., the company that owns and runs the Kings, Mlakar -- shown above seated in front of a hockey-action mural at Kings headquarters -- oversees the day-to-day and business operations of the team. And at least from the outside, it looks like a perfect fit.

If you understand sports, and particularly hockey, then you have a pretty good idea of who and what is Roy Mlakar (pronounced ma-lahker). He's a 41-year-old who has been working in the sports business since he was 19. He's going gray and his hair is thinning out on top; he has two teenage daughters but he's as enthusiastic about sports as any guy in his early 20s, 30s or any age.

He admits that sports are his life. He's not especially interested in politics or social issues or books, or the larger questions of life, death or money.

He was on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio visiting friends on the spring day in 1970 when four Vietnam War protesters were killed by members of the Ohio National Guard. Mlakar complains that because of the tragedy, Kent State is indelibly linked to that anti-war era but no one remembers all the great athletes that have attended the school. Mlakar easily acknowledges that he would rather talk about the athletes of Kent State than that May day, or the Vietnam era.

While many college students during that time were growing their hair long, smoking pot and going to anti-war rallies, Mlakar was involved in sports, first as a player and then as a promoter.

"I loved to play, mainly football and baseball. I always wanted to be a professional, or at least play in college, but I just wasn't good enough," said Mlakar during a recent interview in his office at the Great Western Forum, home of the Kings, in Inglewood.

Many people -- particularly sports fans -- would undoubtedly envy Mlakar's position. His salary is in the $200,000 range, he hobnobs with professional athletes and movie stars, and he can get tickets to just about any event he wants to see.

But he stays in the background of the Kings, and off the sports pages, and that suits him just fine.

"I'm sure that many people think I have a good job but they don't know about when I was working for almost nothing or for $7,500 or $13,000," he said.

Mlakar has worked for Kings owner Bruce McNall as executive vice president for four years, and since 1991 has also been an executive with the Toronto Argonauts, the Canadian Football League franchise McNall bought in 1991.

As executive vice president, Mlakar oversees the operations of a team (the Kings) with an annual operating budget of about $20 million.

He is not involved in player development or trades; that part of the operation is left to Rogie Vachon, the former National Hockey League star.

Mlakar's duties involve merchandising and promoting the team, ticket sales, operations and keeping the front office running. Key questions about the Kings are escalating ticket prices and what happens to the team after superstar Wayne Gretzky leaves or retires.

Because hockey doesn't have a large television contract like other professional sports, 75 percent of a hockey team's revenues come from ticket sales, which have to keep pace with the big salaries of professional athletes. As a result, ticket prices to hockey games are among the highest of any professional sport.

Even though the Kings have sold out every home game at the Forum this year, they will probably not make a profit for the regular season. "If we make the playoffs, we may make money," said Mlakar. The team's budget is based on just the regular season; making the playoffs produces additional revenues that far exceed the costs of putting on the additional games, he said. "That's why it's very important for us to make the playoffs. It's not only good for the team and for the fans, but it's good for our bottom line."

Before McNall acquired Gretzky prior to the 1988-89 season, the Kings were a ho-hum team. Now, the Kings are almost as popular with both the Hollywood crowd and every other sports fan in Los Angeles as the basketball Lakers.

"We have 'life after Gretzky' meetings to talk about that. We know he's going to be gone one day, that's why we have strongly merchandised the team, to get our name out there and develop a fan base," says Mlakar.

Merchandising is how Mlakar got into the sports business. Back in the late 1960s, he went to a game of the old Cleveland Barons of the American Hockey League.

There were 4,000 people in the stands "but there weren't any young people there and I wondered why." Mlakar went to the owner of the team, Nick Mileti, with an idea to lure more young people to the game. The plan: for $5, college students would get a game ticket, bus transportation and low-alcohol beer or soda. Mlakar sent out flyers and put ads in student newspapers in colleges around Cleveland promoting the package.

"Two thousand kids showed up and I like to think that was the start of group ticket sales."

Mlakar, who was a college student at the time, started doing part-time sales work for the Barons. When he finished school, he went to work full time for Mileti, who also owned the Cleveland Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association and the Cleveland Indians, the Major League Baseball franchise.

In 1973, Mlakar moved to an American Hockey League team in Providence, R.I., and then to the New Haven (Conn.) Nighthawks, a former farm team of the Kings. He was president of the Nighthawks when McNall hired him in 1988.

Mlakar does not have any formal training in business. He studied communications and journalism in college with the idea of being a sports writer or broadcaster. But, he says, his strength in the sports business is that he has done everything, except play on a high level. "Go anywhere in this office, or any office of any sports team, and I've done that job," he said.

Those who have worked for Mlakar say he's generally a good and fair boss, but that he can sometimes be very demanding. They say his outside interests are his family and exercising.

It was not too long ago that the 5-foot-11-inch Mlakar weighed more than 260 pounds and smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. Challenged by a player back in New Haven, Mlakar quit smoking and lost 70 pounds. He now works out as often as twice a day, and recently built a gym in his home. If he does any reading other than newspapers, it's magazine articles or books about sports while riding a stationary bicycle or using the treadmill.

In the refrigerator in his office, Mlakar keeps six packs of Diet Coke, which probably help him maintain his high energy level and keep his weight down.

If he's not working out, Mlakar says he's collecting memorabilia about his second-favorite sports team, the baseball Indians.

Mlakar's father was a police officer who died when Roy was only seven years old. But his dad's law-and-order, conservative, middle-America and straight-laced influence has remained with Mlakar. "My mother, who is living in Florida, would say, 'Your father wouldn't have liked that.' I still think about that."