HOCKEY : Gretzky’s Legacy Seen in Warm Climates

Bruce McNall can remember when he was embarrassed to tell someone he was going to see a hockey game in Los Angeles. He was afraid to admit he liked the game.

“I was afraid to ask a date to go to see the Kings,” McNall says. “But by the end of last season, I was hearing from a lot of fans, including some of the biggest stars in Hollywood who couldn’t get tickets.”

When McNall spent $20 million to buy the Kings from Jerry Buss in March 1988, friends told him he was crazy. But that was when the Kings were losing $4 million a year and the average attendance was 11,667.

The Kings’ fortunes changed August 9, 1988, when McNall acquired Wayne Gretzky along with Marty McSorley and Mike Krushelnyski from Edmonton for Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, first-round draft choices in 1989, ’91 and ’93 and $15 million.

Another $20 million was paid to Gretzky as part of an eight-year contract. Still, the total was a bargain for McNall.

“Wayne settled that tab in about two years,” McNall says. “In fact, if this was the film industry, the NHL would be paying him residuals from now until about 2025 for what he has done for hockey in the United States.

“People told me I could never make a go of it in Los Angeles. Now, we not only have a franchise worth five times what I paid for it, but we also have more warm-weather teams -- in San Jose and Anaheim and Tampa Bay and South Florida. That would not have happened if Gretzky was still in Edmonton.”

After five years, the Kings have a clear edge over the Oilers -- 196-160-48 to 175-183-46 -- in the trade.

Although the Oilers won the 1990 Cup without Gretzky, they are rebuilding after two subpar seasons, including missing the playoffs in 1992-93. They also sold an all-time low 10,327 season tickets and averaged 14,797 per game, down 1,400 from 1991-92. None of the players or draft choices obtained in The Trade is playing for the Oilers.

“If the trade would have been done over and we’d have gotten 25 first-round picks, it still wouldn’t be fair,” Oilers General Manager Glen Sather says. “You can never make up for any kind of deal involving Wayne Gretzky. He’s the greatest hockey player to ever play.

“If I could have given Wayne and the rest of those players the money they wanted, I would have. But it just wasn’t possible in a small-market city like Edmonton.”

The shame of it is that we were deprived of seeing how many more championships the Oilers might have won if their dynasty had not been ended prematurely after winning four Cups in five seasons.

What the Gretzky trade did, however, is prove warm-weather cities could be a success in hockey.

“I was in on the ground floor of the Oakland Seals and then the New York Islanders, and I know how difficult it is to sell the game in and out of hockey climates,” Florida Panthers President Bill Torrey says. “Anytime a team from a traditionally non-hockey market does well, it helps the league’s fight against the charge that the sport is a regional game. Win or lose, I think what the Kings did was great for the game.”

For a while it didn’t appear as if McNall was going to be rewarded for his investment. Though the Kings attracted sellout crowds of 16,005 nearly every night and merchandising had tripled, the Kings were less than successful in the playoffs.

The Kings knocked off the defending champions -- the Oilers in 1989 and Flames in ’90 -- in first-round playoff upsets. But after they lost three consecutive times in the Smythe Division finals, the Kings were eliminated in the first round by the Oilers in ’92. That’s when Peter Pocklington, Gretzky’s former boss in Edmonton, laughed and said the many former Oilers playing for the Kings were too old to play.

But the Kings had the last laugh when they went to the finals last season as hockey fever caught on in Los Angeles.

“We have gone from the back page to the front page of the newspapers and from last to first on the sportscasts,” Gretzky says. “I never dreamed we would be ahead of the Lakers or Dodgers in popularity.”

To prove how far hockey has come since McNall was afraid to call himself a fan, consider this item in the classified section of the Los Angeles Times before Game 3 of the finals.

Kings (2 tix), Section 33, Row VI, $1,000 each.

The tickets were $60 apiece in the regular season and $85 each for the finals.

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If the Detroit Red Wings have the kind of season everyone expects, no one will be complaining about the $1.1-million raise Red Wings center Steve Yzerman received last week.

Yzerman, whose salary went from $1.6 million to $2.7 million for 1993-94 -- with three more years at $3 million, $3.5 million and $4 million -- will produce at greater than the 58-goal, 79-assist pace he had in 1992-93 because he no longer will be reduced to the same amount of ice time as Detroit’s third- and fourth-line players as he had been under Bryan Murray the past few seasons. Scotty Bowman, who replaces Murray behind the bench this season, will see to that.

Think about it for a minute: Mario Lemieux always seemed to be on the ice the past two seasons with Bowman the coach. Yzerman, who had a career-high 155 points in 1988-89, can expect that same kind of workload this season.

Knowing when to use his best players has made Bowman the biggest winner in NHL history and surely will increase Yzerman’s importance to the Red Wings.

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Icy bits: The Kings had better hurry and sign free agents McSorley and Warren Rychel before the Red Wings do. Detroit has offered McSorley $6.25 million over four years. The Red Wings see Rychel as a potential replacement for Bob Probert, whom they are looking to deal. Rychel, who had six goals and seven assists in 70 games in the regular season before scoring six goals and seven assists in 23 playoff games, also is being pursued by the Canucks and Blackhawks. ... Mario Lemieux’s recovery from outpatient back surgery to repair a muscle hernia in his lower back and ease some of the discomfort he has felt the past two seasons is going great, and he should be ready to play midway through training camp. ... Reuniting free-agent center Vladimir Ruzicka with Coach Rick Bowness in Ottawa is a good match. Ruzicka led the Bruins with 39 goals in 1991-92 with Bowness behind the bench. Last season, with Brian Sutter as coach, Ruzicka slumped to 19 goals.

I still can’t believe the Devils gave Jacques Lemaire $600,000 to coach this season. Only Scotty Bowman, Mike Keenan and Jacques Demers will make more than Lemaire. ... Having worked as a professional scout for the Canadiens last season, Ducks General Manager Jack Ferreira no doubt has a great book on Montreal prospect Patrik Carnback, who scored 20 goals and 37 assists for Fredericton (American Hockey League). Before coming to Montreal, Carnback had 111 goals and 116 assists in six seasons in the Swedish Elite League. Acquiring Carnback and tough guy Todd Ewen, who had five goals and nine assists for the Canadiens, for only a third-round draft choice was a bargain for Ferreira.