As we Kings’ fans wake up on the dawn of a new day, the glow of the first win on North American soil has worn off and time to inhale indefinitely hoping the Kings’ win was not a mirage, never to be repeated, at least not anytime soon anyway… yikes!!
In fact, a co-worker of mine more a soccer than hockey fan, called me a saint or at least someone with the patience of Job, for not wanting the entire coaching and management staff fired for the team’s performance to date. I actually find myself to be neither, just someone who has had life throw me more than one curve and knows up close and personal just what it takes to start over without much notice and in a new town and in the same one.
Athletes have talents we mere mortals do not possess that enable them to be paid more in a year than we will make in a life time. It is now more than cliché but how professional athletes are judged, this of course is a business, they are not people, right?
Problem is sports and the NHL are a business. The assets of this billion dollar venture are in fact people. This irony always hits me most after trades. The most typical first quote from the traded player, I am so happy to come to City X and Team Y because ‘they wanted me.’
Even these multi-millionaires who consciously get this is a business, deep down just want to not be the guy in the sand lot who gets picked last or not at all on the neighborhood softball team.
Why am I off on this tangent?
Kings’ fans are an especially patient lot, not Cub fan patience, but patient nonetheless. We fans would have to be since this team only came close to one championship and of late near never even makes the playoffs, much less has a credible chance for a Cup.
Prior to the lockout, the star players all left the Kings once they wanted a salary commensurate with the open market value, as opposed to the Lou Lamoriello secret Kool-Aid that makes guys like Zach Parise sign for a fraction of his current value and Brodeur who negotiates his own deals sans an agent and near always again for a fraction of his real value.
Fans may hate Blake, okay do in many cases. This real player-hate is because he left us, ripped out our hearts out when he wanted real value. Post the McNall era and pre-lockout, the Kings functioned in a big market and paid like a bankrupt small one.
The post-lockout NHL enabled cash strapped teams or self-imposed budget conscious teams to compete with the big kids on the block. Now, the Wings, Avalanche and Rangers have no more advantage than the Oilers, Flames, Hurricanes or Lightning and of late, I believe, the Kings.
It is for this reason I buy Lombardi’s Kool-Aid that if the Kings do not spend to the cap, e-mail him not Anschutz and Leiweke. He has authority to spend to the last penny of the cap.
Here the team sits, spent material dollars and moved in a lot of new players. As impatient reasonable people who have no interest in looking at this team as fallible people, we look at the stats, we watch the games and rush to judge this new Kings’ crew as heartless and have secret dreams to clean house yet again, leave Crawford and Blake on the nearest corner, because surely with different leaders and coaches, these new unknown unemployed coaches could make these millionaires play like a team and break a sweat to fans’ satisfaction.
Sounds good and reasonable… in the heat of the moment, sure, in reality not even close.
Think about the fact that we have near half a new team. This by definition means half of this team uprooted their families, sold their homes or not, found new schools for their kids, found a new home, moved in, unpacked, know where to find a bank, a restaurant and a whole new set of friends who will surely replace the old ones in the nanosecond they have been here.
Then you say, well the team is their family and surely the Kings help with these transitions and logistics. I have no inside information, for the sake of discussion, lets say they do or the players have people they pay to do all of this and these unknown helpers do it all flawlessly. (Huh)
Going on this premise, the players’ needs, wants are met. I submit to all of you this support system does not fall into place for the wives, kids and significant others of the players who do not walk into an instant family.
These actual flesh and blood family members are in new towns, know no one and their husbands are out of town regularly for work, the games of course where we expect these same players to perform as if they were assets not mere mortals who are not adjusting to a major life/family change and perform to equivalent value of their contract number or better.
Fans actually want more than that. These 23 players are all professionals, get paid millions and surely as their vocation, with these salaries, they can just all get on the same page, play hard or at least look to spectators what the fans would describe as effort even if no wins result.
Admittedly, I say regularly I can live without the wins if I see the effort. From my seat, I am pretty vocal for an otherwise shy person (really) and have been known to scream “Break a sweat”, “Move your feet” or last year’s slogan, “Play Harder”. The last one still makes me chuckle.
My expectations for these men, rich men but people, is not realistic. Take the dollars sign away, close your eyes and ask yourself if you had to switch jobs, move to a new city and sometimes this is done in a 24 hour period, how would you respond. And I mean really respond, not the for those dollars, I just know how hard I would work if it were for me. Truth is we as fans cannot really live in their shoes.
NHL players spend a grand or ten grand the way we spend $10 or $100.00 so we really don’t live in their world, just enjoy what they do at work and are willing to pay to watch.
Now, I will apply this more to a recent and now former King. Craig Conroy was signed by Taylor before the lock-out for 4 years. It was not optional for Craig to stay with his current team. He had to seek employment elsewhere, Sutter made it clear no offer at any amount or any term was on the table. He was no longer ‘wanted’ despite helping Iginla and the Flames get within 1 game of the Cup and he was the former captain there.
The Kings and Taylor not only wanted him, the team wanted him for more term and more dollars than anyone. It was a no brainer and Conroy most likely never signed a deal faster. To increase his liklihood of success here, due to the lock-out, he had an opportunity to come to Los Angeles and adjust for months if not a whole year depending when he relocated his family.
Conroy was a player Murray and Taylor valued and he was immediately installed on the 1st line with Demitra and Frolov, given power play and penalty kill minutes and made an immediate splash. Murray was deemed a genius for putting the three together and the line when healthy was one of the league’s best.
After that great year, when even USA Hockey took notice and he went to the Olympics, the Kings had their house cleaning, one of the most thorough and top to bottom changes I have ever seen in any sport actually. The new regime pegged Conroy entirely different and not good different…. not even close…. Ouch!
I heckled Conroy as much as anyone when Crawford took over. From a stats view alone, the guy took a half a season to score what he did in far less time under Murray. Problem with my perception is that it wasn’t Conroy’s reality.
Crawford took Conroy and shipped him to the 4th line, stripped him of specialty team play and everyone deemed him a bust pretty early into the season. Considering the difference in his minutes, linemates and opportunities, his Los Angeles fall from grace was not only forseeable but likely.
After Conroy was mercifully traded back to his prior team and by the same GM who tendered no offer, he played like the guy the Kings saw his first year here. On this day where the Kings take on Conroy and the Flames, this seemed like the right time to offer perspective and read an interview he gave ESPN after the trade. Check it out,
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=amber_david&id=2806753
This is my way of begging the indulgence of the oh so patient Kings fans to indulge these players for more than 6 games considering the realities of these same players’ lives off the ice, away from the rink and the demands of the families involved who are adjusting to their new town, new schools, and whom do not have their dads there to even fully help soften the blow while these whirlwind moves sink in.
I get their lives are easier than ours from a money perspective. Just consider giving these players more time before we start the next lynch mob…
Regardless of how the 2007-2008 Kings play out, the future Kings now not only include Bernier, but up and comer Oscar Moller who just scored his first career hat trick for the Chilliwack Bruins, his junior team. Peruse the future possibilities..
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/Junior/2007/10/18/4585154-cp.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3034644246250038401&hl=en
Carla Muller
[email protected] 
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