FanHouse Los Angeles Kings

Yesterday, members of the Los Angeles Kings were in Burbank, California paying a visit to everyone's favorite game show, the Price is Right. They did a taping of the show that featured Luc Robitaille, Derek Armstrong, Denis Gauthier, Kyle Calder, Dustin Brown and their mascot Bailey. Drew Carey and Lucky Luc on the same stage. That's a sentence I never thought I would be able to say.

The taping was for, as you might have already figured out, a special hockey themed episode of the show. A legion of Kings fans from the website LetsGoKings.com were there and message boarder robm had a nice synopsis of what went down.

We get to the final show case, and finally, Kings. The Kings were in the first showcase. The showcase started off with Denis Gauthier asking the contestant if he wanted a punch in the face. Interesting. Then, they showed the first part of the showcase which was tickets to a game with penalty box seats during practice along with a crap load of Kings memorabilia. We could've split that among all the fans and been happy. In fact, in retrospect, I should've asked if we could've split it amongst the sixteen of us. Crap. The next portion of the prize was a trip to Switzerland for the hockey championships (next year?) and finally there was a boat. The display of the boat started off with someone (Calder?) starting a sentence and then the rest of the guys throwing him into a boat. Eventually, Army with some help was able to pull Dustin's shirt over his head. Basically, Dustin was bare chested for that part of the show case.

Mmm... Half naked hockey players. Now that's what I'm talking about. They were probably just showing off for the Price is Right models. But in all seriousness, from all accounts it sounded like a good time even though it was a long day. Did you know that the folks in the audience have to show up at 8:45 am for a 1 pm taping? Hoo boy. I can't say I could sit through that! Pictures from the day are after the jump courtesy of Getty Images.

Update (9:56 AM): Puck Daddy reports that the episode will air on November 5th.

The whole topic of Eklund is almost trivial at this point, but it continues to make waves in the blogosphere. I almost feel it's useless to reiterate time and time again as some people will never get it and the rest of us will continue to see through the veil he puts up. But, as reported by Pension Plan Puppets, it turns out that the one, the only, Eklund has been up to no good. I'm sure that comes as a shock to all of you.

The Anonymous Hockey Blogger allegedly grabbed some rumors from Los Angeles Kings beat writer Rich Hammond who writes at InsideSoCal.com. The paragraph in question is as follows in a screenshot from PPP.


And the paragraph that Hammond wrote? As you might have guessed, it's eerily similar. In fact, it's almost exactly the same. Hours later, the paragraph in the screen shot was removed from Eklund's site and replaced with the following:

As you've probably been reminded about 1,000 times already, this Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the hockey world's Trade to End All Trades (Also known as Mark Messier Meltdown Day and the Day Canada Died Albeit Temporarily). More commonly, it is known as the day when Wayne Gretzky was traded to the Los Angeles Kings from the Edmonton Oilers for some guys who were pretty good but never really equated to the value of Wayne FREAKING Gretzky.

August 9, 1988. A day that will live in hockey infamy forever. At least in Canada. Or maybe just Edmonton.

But however you remember it, wherever you were that day when you first heard the news (heck, it might have taken a week to hear about it back in those days with the pony express and all), it's something that hockey fans will remember forever. At least those of us who were old enough to remember it.

That can't be right. Or can it? The Kings have always seemed to have some financial trouble, dating back to before the lockout. That's common knowledge. After that we went through an entire year without hockey for the sole purpose of restoring the financial viability of all the clubs. There were, and are, no guarantees that the clubs are all in the green, but from everything we have been told over the last three years they are doing much better than prior to the lockout. But wait ... The Los Angeles Daily News reported today that the Kings are losing more money now than they were prior to the lockout. Those emboldened words are key here.

I'll let that you soak that in for a moment while I present you with an excerpt from the Daily News.

The Kings declined to release specific numbers, but said they're losing more money per year now than before the lockout. At the start of the lockout, the Kings claimed to be losing $8 to $10 million a year.

"We're building our organization differently, to meet the reality that we're losing even more than we did before the lockout," chief marketing officer Chris McGowan said. "We have to run a better business."

Thus, the ticket-price increases, even coming off a season in which the Kings tied for the fewest points in the NHL. The Kings believe the increases are necessary, in part, to help stabilize their bottom line.

So are the Kings really losing more money now than before the lockout? Wasn't the point of the lockout to fix problems such as these?

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

Chris Pronger is a classic hockey conundrum. On the one hand, he's the sort of game-changing defenseman that comes along once or twice in a generation; they just enshrined one of those guys in the Hall of Fame. On the other, he has a propensity for being a boorish goon with a non-diagnosed allergy to integrity. No other player in the NHL can morph as quickly from a Hart Trophy winner to the equivalent of Sean Avery in Wally Szczerbiak's body.

Add Michal Handzus to a Pronger hit list that includes Pat Peake, Jeremy Roenick, Brenden Morrow, Ville Nieminen, Tomas Holmstrom, Dean McAmmond and the City of Edmonton. In last night's 4-3 shootout win by Anaheim over Los Angeles, Pronger pummeled Handzus at the end of overtime, earning an instigator, a fighting major and a game-misconduct. As usual, Pronger was on the defense, speaking with the Los Angeles Times: "He shot the puck after the whistle and I ran into him," said the Duck. "He tried to come back at me and I threw him into the boards. And then he started towards me." Interesting take ... although others claim they saw something dramatically different. (UPDATE after the jump.)

(Coming Up Next: Last Night's Losers, Hull and Avery Puck Headlines, the New All-Star Jerseys, Most Embarrassing Stat Line of the Night, Ovie and Sidney on Oprah, Games You Need To Watch Tonight and Snoopy Does Hockey.)

"Lucky" Luc Robitaille, who will always be remembered as a Los Angeles King more than a New York Ranger, Detroit Red Wing, or Pittsburgh Penguin, has been given the title of "His Presidency of the Los Angeles Kings."

This promotion was earned after just one year on the job as an assistant to Tim Leiweke, the CEO of Anschutz Entertainment Group. Talk about a quick promotion!

"I have invested so much of myself into this organization since I was drafted here in 1984 and I look forward to the opportunity to truly have an impact on our future success," said Robitaille. "I have gained tremendous experience this past year with AEG and the Kings and I look forward to continued growth as a business professional in this great city.

In his new role, Robitaille will oversee the day-to-day business operations of the Kings. His time will focus directly on all business initiatives as it relates to the team.

Giving Luc a role with the Kings is a no-brainer for the club, which needs to leverage Luc's movie-star good looks and love in the Kingdom of Los Angeles to help promote the club amongst the beautiful people. Robitaille is the perfect public face to put in the front office, and having him around can help the Kings market their product to a fan-base that fondly remembers the good old days when Robitaille was burying the biscuit in the basket with great frequency.

Day-to-day business operations? That seems like a large step for a guy like Robitaille. Just like Steve Yzerman of the Detroit Red Wings, Luc doesn't have much in the way of formal business training. Yet, he is expected to operate the day-to-day financial aspects of a multi-million dollar corporate entity?

At the very least, Luc has some experience to draw on. Combine the one year as an assistant to Lieweke and the fact he's been the President of the USHL's Omaha Lancers for the past year, and we can see that Luc isn't a total n00b in the business side of hockey.

Does this promotion reek of old-boys-club? Yes, it certainly does. So, let's hope the Kings continue to groom Robitaille and give him the support he'll need as he'll be in an arena where he won't be an instant star like he on the ice.

See also:
Brodeur vs. Robitaille: One Last Battle
How did Luc Robitaille get 'Lucky'?