SHE WALKS THE NHL TALK; U.S. CAPTAIN GRANATO TO DO ANALYSIS FOR KINGS.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH The Media

Cammi Granato says she's been backed into the ``what's this girl doing here?'' corner too many times to count.

So if she hears any sort of obnoxious sports-guy complaint about the Kings' highly progressive move to hire her as the NHL's lone female analyst this season, que sera.

Besides, what meathead is going to take the chance of getting a fat lip from the captain of the Olympic gold-medal-winning U.S. women's hockey team?

``I know there will be some resistance, but I'm used to it,'' said the 27-year-old, who signed a three-year deal with the team this week. Granato will work as Nick Nickson's partner on radio, represent the Kings in community relations activities and help organize a women's hockey festival.

``I've always been pretty comfortable around the media, and during the Olympics, that experience was insane. I'm not going to be an overnight success. It'll be an education process, but I have so many resources around here. I'll take it one day at a time and see how it all works out.''

Kings president Tim Leiweke emphasizes that this ``is not a gimmick'' or an attempt to cash in on Granato's Olympic success. Maybe he needed to say that for the record, but there's no doubt of the team's intentions.

``I compare it to what ESPN has done with Julie Fouty (a U.S. women's soccer star who was a studio commentator during the men's World Cup this past summer) and even Mary Carillo on men's tennis,'' said Jim Fox, the team's TV analyst who starts his ninth season with Bob Miller and who has already given Granato a sort of crash course in Hockey Analyst 101.

Adds Nickson, working with his third regular partner in the last nine years: ``Realistically, anyone going into this profession needs time to develop confidence and go through the learning process. But she knows hockey and as long as we can translate that, she'll be accepted. She was front and center during the Olympics. Really, who's more qualified as far as name recognition and the success she's had on the ice?

``I look at it as gaining a perspective of the game from a woman instead of gaining a woman's perspective of the game.''

The Kings expect her to miss a handful of games during the season as she continues to play for the U.S. women's team - the winger is the squad's all-time leading scorer. A post-Olympic tournament will take two weeks of her time in December. She'll also need three weeks in March for tryouts for the team she's been part of since 1990.

When she's off playing, the Kings will use former player Darryl Evans with Nickson. Mike Allison, Nickson's partner the last three years, left to become a teacher in Minnesota after looking into other broadcasting jobs. Nickson, who also worked with Brian Engblom for four years before ESPN scooped him up, started his radio play-by-play duties with then-injured Kings player Tom Laidlaw.

``In a few more years I should get my Master's degree in broadcasting,'' joked professor Nickson who signed a 5-year-contract extension Thursday.

The only other woman to ever have been a broadcast analyst was Sherry Ross, a current New York Daily News sportswriter who did color for the New Jersey Devils' radio games from 1992-95. Granato's first game with Nickson will be the Kings' exhibition opener a week from Saturday when they face Colorado at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH . . .

ABC's ``Monday Night Football'' opener pulled down a 14.8 rating and 24 share nationally, which won the night against the other networks but was a drop from the 16.7/27 average last season. Did the early kickoff have anything to do with it? L.A.'s rating (16.1/28) didn't seem to make much of a case for that. In fact, an ABC spokesman pointed out that the East Coast 8-to-11 p.m. prime-time window was actually up 20 percent from last year. The reason for the national dip could be because the Denver-New England game was the first time in 17 years that MNF had an all-AFC matchup for its opener. AFC traditionally has the smaller TV markets.

SOUND BYTES

By Tom Hoffarth E-mail: sptmediaaol.com

WHAT SMOKES

Save that Sept. 14 issue that Sports Illustrated mailed out to subscribers Wednesday with Mark McGwire on the cover hitting home run No. 61. It might not be the one you find on newsstands today. For the first time in its 44-year history, SI has reprinted an already-issued issue, slapping a new McGwire cover on it with the headline ``62.! . . . September 8, 1988'' and shipping out a half-million copies.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch held off running McGwire-related ads, posters and radio commercials until after he set the record. A newspaper spokesman said it was because the paper did not want to exploit the feat. The paper's circulation of 325,000 went to more than 900,000 by Wednesday night.

ESPN.com, which had three reporters at Tuesday's Cardinals-Cubs game, had a headline on its Web site home page that said ``Gone

McGwire hits 62nd'' as McGwire was touching third base, reports the Sports Business Daily.

Marv Albert and Heather Faulkiner were married Wednesday in a small, private ceremony in Manhattan. The couple has registered for gifts at (fill in the punchline).

WHAT CHOKES

Amid the barrage of ratings info that Fox issued for its Mark McGwire 62nd home-run game telecast Tuesday, it mentioned that its owned-and-operate St. Louis affiliate KTVI posted a 43.4 rating and a 59 share, which means about two-thirds of all TV sets on in the city were tuned to the game. So what were the other third possibly watching?

QVC admits that it broke into its ``regular programming'' - what could that have been? - just four seconds after No. 62 was hit and sold more than 100,000 baseball-related items totaling more than $2.6 million, which only reinforces the belief that impulse buying is a disease.

Fox goes back to regional baseball coverage Saturday. Meaning the St. Louis-Houston game, featuring Randy Johnson serving up fastballs to his former USC teammate, will be shown to 69 percent of the country, and the L.A. market is among the eight percent that will see the Angels game at Baltimore at 10 a.m.

McGwire's participation in the ``I'm going to Disneyland'' ad, which aired on Disney-owned ESPN within hours of his 62nd home run Tuesday. Disneyland? Hey, Mark, you're from Orange County, remember?

Dick Vitale will be inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., under the auspices of the Curt Gowdy Award, which is given to a media member who ``makes an outstanding contribution to basketball.'' The contribution would be the advancement of technology in TV volume control.

WHAT SMOKED ON LOCAL TV

The top 10 Nielsen-rated sports events (with their share numbers) on L.A. television from Sept. 3-9:

Event Date Station Rt/Sh.x

NFL: New Eng.-Denver 9/7 KABC 16.1/28

MLB: St. Louis-Chicago (a) 9/8 Fox 15.0/27

NFL: N.Y. Jets-San Fran. 9/6 KCBS 9.6/23

MLB: St. Louis-Chicago (b) 9/7 ESPN 8.8/19

NFL: Detroit-Green Bay 9/6 Fox 7.4/19

MLB: St. Louis-Chicago 9/6 Fox 7.4/18

Michigan-Notre Dame 9/5 KNBC 6.1/16

NFL: Pitts.-Baltimore 9/6 KCBS 5.3/14

NFL: Oakland-K.C. 9/6 ESPN 4.4/10

MLB: Dodgers-S.F. 9/4 KTLA 4.3/8

a-Mark McGwire's 62nd home run; b-McGwire's 61st home run.

x-One rating point equals 50,092 TV homes in Los Angeles; a share is the percentage of all the TV sets in use at that time.

CAPTION(S):

2 Boxes

Box: (1) SOUND BYTES (See Text)

(2) WHAT SMOKED ON LOCAL TV (See Text)