Hockey

PHOENIX — As hockey fever grips Los Angeles, Dodgers President Stan Kasten said he plans to explore whether the Kings could play in an NHL Winter Classic game at Dodger Stadium. "Facility-wise, we could certainly handle it," Kasten said. The NHL has yet to award its New Year's Day showcase to a warm-weather city. The Dodgers could offer baseball's largest stadium and the iconic backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains. Kasten, former president of the NHL Atlanta Thrashers, said technology would allow ice to remain playable for an outdoor hockey game at Dodger Stadium but said he was unsure if the league would be interested.

The Kings were five points out of a playoff spot and stood a wobbly 11th in the Western Conference on Dec. 22, the day Darryl Sutter made his debut as their coach. The team he took over was flailing. General Manager Dean Lombardi thought he had acquired the final pieces for a contender six months earlier when he traded for center Mike Richards and signed free-agent winger Simon Gagne, but the offense was sputtering. Coach Terry Murray's defense-oriented foundation had become the team's ceiling, leaving no room for skill or creativity.

Trade Gretzky. That's what the Kings must do if they ever expect to become a respectable hockey club, or any other kind of club. Trade him now, before lunch, before it dawns on the rest of the league what a fraud he is. Wayne Gretzky calls himself a hockey player? How many times during the playoffs did he sucker-punch an opponent? Did he even once slash, trip, high-stick or cross-check--i.e: execute the fundamentals? He probably doesn't even jaywalk. Wasn't it Gretzky who was supposed to bring this city not only the Stanley Cup, but also the Stanley Saucer?

For Willie Mitchell , it has been nine years since he just missed out on the chance to play in the Stanley Cup Final, and two years since his hockey-playing future was in serious doubt because of a lingering concussion. So what's another week of waiting for the Cup puck to drop? That may seem like an interminable amount of time for some of his younger Kings teammates, but not for the 35-year-old defenseman. Rest is embraced, not rejected, by the team's "over-35 crowd," Mitchell said.

Staples Center is home to four professional sports franchises, the Lakers, Clippers, Kings and Sparks. Each team has a different set-up on the arena floor. It is up to the crew overseen by the Staples Center operations department to reconfigure the floor for each game. Several times a year they must make the changeover twice or more over one weekend in between games. Last Saturday afternoon, while fans were still heading for the exits after the Clippers' 103-100 loss to the San Antonio Spurs, 65 workers began transforming the arena for the Kings' game against the Calgary Flames that night.

Ever wonder how Staples Center switches from a Lakers basketball court to a Kings hockey rink? If so, wonder no more. You can see it all happen in the above time-lapse video shot by Jason Neubert. Some facts: It takes two to three hours for the conversion to take place. Ever wonder why it's always so cold in Staples Center during Lakers games? As you can see from the video, the basketball court is removed one panel at a time, exposing the ice, which is already in place beneath the court.

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The Clarence Campbell bowl, awarded to the champion of the NHL's Western Conference, is not what the Kings dreamed of lifting or kissing or winning this season. Always, their goal was to win the Stanley Cup, as preposterous as it seemed while their offense went stale and they struggled to score goals and went through the turmoil of a midseason coaching change. Sometimes it seemed that they alone believed, that they alone saw what they could become with the right tweaks and right coach and right approach.

They were mere steps away from each other in the giddy, crowded hallway at Staples Center: Tim Leiweke and Bruce McNall. The present and past nearly collided Thursday night, the bookend faces of a long and winding and often frustrating hockey journey for the Kings' franchise. Nineteen years after McNall's Kings reached the Stanley Cup finals for the first time, Leiweke's Kings are on the verge of their second appearance in the finals. "Memories," said McNall, the former owner.

David Joyce marched his way to the front of the U.S. immigration line using his pocketbook, sinking half a million dollars into a Vermont ski resort. The British citizen had spent years in a futile effort to secure green cards for himself, his wife and their 9-year-old son so they could relocate to sunny Florida. Then, a fellow emigre tipped him off to a little-known federal program that helps foreigners gain permanent U.S. residency by investing in American businesses. Graphic: Number of investors' visas to U.S. "In six months, we had our green cards," said Joyce, 51. "Considering everything we've been through, this was easy.

Hockey's roots in Southern California stretch back decades before Wayne Gretzky glamorized the game or the first Mighty Duck quacked in Anaheim. In "Hockey Night in Hollywood," Willie Runquist traced the first organized game here to Feb. 23, 1925, when the Los Angeles Athletic Club defeated the Los Angeles Monarchs, 3-1, at the Palais de Glace, at Melrose and Vermont avenues. Artificial ice there and later in Paramount started a wave of enthusiasm for hockey.

PHOENIX — As hockey fever grips Los Angeles, Dodgers President Stan Kasten said he plans to explore whether the Kings could play in an NHL Winter Classic game at Dodger Stadium. "Facility-wise, we could certainly handle it," Kasten said. The NHL has yet to award its New Year's Day showcase to a warm-weather city. The Dodgers could offer baseball's largest stadium and the iconic backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains. Kasten, former president of the NHL Atlanta Thrashers, said technology would allow ice to remain playable for an outdoor hockey game at Dodger Stadium but said he was unsure if the league would be interested.

Hint No. 1 that this was something big. Text messages. "It's one of those signs you've done something unusual," he said. Hint No. 2 that this was something extra big. An outpouring of fan support, post-midnight, adjacent to LAX after the Kings' flight had landed. "It was like driving down a hallway lined with human flesh," he said. "You couldn't see anything except people screaming and Kings jerseys. It was a feeling that not anyone will forget ever, I think on the Kings team.

The voice on the phone was animated, a Kings fan talking about the team's run to the Stanley Cup Final with the passion typical of their loyal, long-suffering audience. "It's been unreal what they've done and what they've accomplished so far," Wayne Gretzky said Wednesday. "It's been unreal for the organization and it's been great for hockey in California and L.A. We live in L.A., so we're seeing it first-hand how fans are rallying around the Kings and hoping that they bring home the Stanley Cup. "It's been fun to watch.

Special-teams play is considered crucial to playoff success, but the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup a year ago with a so-so power play and the Kings reached the Western Conference finals this spring without getting significant production with a man advantage. The Kings also won their first three games against the Phoenix Coyotes despite scoring only two power-play goals, each generated during a two-man edge in Game 2. But their power play's failings were magnified Sunday when they had a chance to advance to the Stanley Cup finals but were stymied six times in a 2-0 loss that sent the series back to Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Ariz., on Tuesday.

GLENDALE, Ariz. - There was the celebratory group hug taking place by the glass, followed by a loud chorus of boos and then objects being tossed on the ice by some fans. Yes, the Kings' long strange journey to the Stanley Cup finals - returning there again for the first time in 19 years - ended with one long thrilling night of hockey and in somewhat surreal fashion. Weren't they supposed to be showered with champagne, not debris? The final step of the journey back to the finals came courtesy of the man who received more criticism since he arrived in Los Angeles a little more than a year ago than any other Kings player in recent memory.

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The Clarence Campbell bowl, awarded to the champion of the NHL's Western Conference, is not what the Kings dreamed of lifting or kissing or winning this season. Always, their goal was to win the Stanley Cup, as preposterous as it seemed while their offense went stale and they struggled to score goals and went through the turmoil of a midseason coaching change. Sometimes it seemed that they alone believed, that they alone saw what they could become with the right tweaks and right coach and right approach.

The voice on the phone was animated, a Kings fan talking about the team's run to the Stanley Cup Final with the passion typical of their loyal, long-suffering audience. "It's been unreal what they've done and what they've accomplished so far," Wayne Gretzky said Wednesday. "It's been unreal for the organization and it's been great for hockey in California and L.A. We live in L.A., so we're seeing it first-hand how fans are rallying around the Kings and hoping that they bring home the Stanley Cup. "It's been fun to watch.

Toronto may be the self-proclaimed Center of the Hockey Universe, but Anaheim has become the cradle of NHL coaches and executives, a position solidified last week when a former general manager of the Ducks fired a former Ducks coach and hired another former Ducks coach to salvage a sorry season. Maple Leafs General Manager Brian Burke , who put the final touches on the Ducks' 2007 Stanley Cup team, on Friday fired Ron Wilson — the Ducks' inaugural coach — and brought in Randy Carlyle , who coached Burke's Ducks to the Cup but was dismissed in late November during a season-sabotaging slump.

He wasn't invoking the wisdom of hockey greats such as the legendary Gordie Howe or even Wayne Gretzky, a star with some serious Kings cred in his background. Kings Coach Darryl Sutter thought about the topic of playing with a lead, reached into his own coaching/playing past and landed in the Midwest — more precisely, in Chicago. "What was Michael Jordan's famous line? Structure gets me to the fourth quarter and then I take over," Sutter said on Monday in El Segundo. The third period would work just fine too. For the second time in three days, the Kings will attempt to close out the Phoenix Coyotes in the Western Conference finals, this time as the visiting team.

Tens of thousands of cycling, hockey and basketball fans will converge at Staples Center in a weekend packed with post-season games and the final stage of the 2012 Amgen Tour of California - events that authorities are warning will close streets and delay traffic in the downtown Los Angeles area. The biggest wrench in traffic will be crowds overlapping for the Kings game and the bike race Sunday. Street closures were scheduled to begin after the Lakers game Saturday night - along Figueroa Street from Pico to Olympic boulevards and on Chick Hearn Court/11th Street from Flower Avenue to Georgia Street - when two pedestrian bridges will be erected so Kings fans can cross the bike route Sunday morning for Game 4 of the NHL Western conference finals.