Meet the Kings Springtime in Southern California is a good time to soak up rts such some sunshine The weather is ideal for outdoor sports such as golf tennis surfing and cycling Thanks to the Los Angeles Kings s KKiings this time of the year has also become the height of hockey season ason In many cities around the country hockey players are major major hen celebrities They are often hounded for autographs when they go out In L A the Kings compete for attention with h superstars from the worlds of movies music and television Players might go days and weeks without being recognized But the Kings don’t mind that They prefer to focus on their jobs on the ice This book tells the story of the Kings Each spring when the weather warms up it’s time to dig down deep and make another run for the Stanley Cup In a city where people are measured by star power and overnight success the Kings are at their best working one goal at a time Anze Kopitar Jeff Carter and Drew Doughty congratulate one another after a goal by the Kings 5
h 6 i hk i H ll dDi Glory Days Ice hockey in Hollywood During the 1960s it seemed like a crazy idea To Jack Kent Cooke it made perfect sense He had just bought basketball’s Los Angeles Lakers and wanted to own a second professional sports team Cooke got good news when the National Hockey League NHL decided to expand from six to 12 teams Los Angeles was awarded a club and Cooke named it the Kings They played their first season in 1967 68 The team’s first coach was Red Kelly one of the NHL’s d lik most respected stars in the 1950s and early 1960s The Kings built their team by picking unwanted players from the original six NHL clubs Their first pick was 38-year-old goalie Terry Sawchuk Bill Flett and Eddie Joyal led the offense while the defense was anchored by Bill White and Dale Rolfe Over the next few years the Kings added Ross Lonsberry Eddie Shack Butch Goring Juha Widing Bob Berry and Bob Pulford 6
By the mid-1970s the Kings had become a very competitive team Pulford was now L A s coach His star players were goalie Rogie Vachon and center Marcel Dionne Vachon had been the back-up goalie for the Montreal Canadiens Dionne had been one of the Detroit Red Wings best young players With Dionne finishing among the league’s scoring leaders every season the Kings made the playoffs nine years in a row In 1978 79 the Kings hired Berry as their coach He put Dionne on a line with Charlie Simmer and Dave Taylor The trio became known as the Triple Crown Line In 1980 81 all three scored 100 points goals plus assists No line in NHL history had ever done that During their six seasons together they averaged better than 280 points a year Dionne played for the Kings until 1987 when he was traded away By then a new group of stars had stepped into leadership roles Left wing Luc Robitaille was good for 40 to 50 goals a year Bernie Nicholls was one of the top all-around centers in the NHL Steve Duchesne LEFT Terry Sawchuk gave the Kings an experienced goalie in their first season ABOVE Marcel Dionne was the center on the Triple Crown Line 7
