A King Reacts to Hockey in Chavez Ravine

Mayor's Manor blog has become essential reading for LA Kings fans everywhere.  Heck, Mayor's Manor may be essential reading for all hockey fans.  After all, you don't get named "Blog of the Year" by Yahoo Sports' Puck Daddy and the "Best Sports Blog in LA" by LA Weekly for nothing.  And with Kings hockey looking like it will be heading for Dodger Stadium, it may soon become essential reading for Dodgers fans, as well.

Following up on my post from yesterday on the news that hockey may be played at Chavez Ravine, John Hoven at Mayor's Manor shares some responses from Kings defenseman Drew Doughty about the future Winter Classic game in a post this afternoon.

- On the Kings playing January 2014 at Dodger Stadium: “No, I didn’t see that. Who are we playing? (The Ducks.) Oh, cool, that’d be cool. Yeah, I don’t understand how that would work…”
Rob Scuderi from across the room – “They’ll put an ice rink on the field Dewey.” (lots of laughs)
- Doughty: “Isn’t it too hot? The ice would be crappy for sure. It’d be fun though, playing in front of a bigger crowd instead of the 18,000 or whatever an NHL rink is. To be able to do that would be fun.”

Drew is right.  The ice is likely to be slushy and bad to play on.  Still, I wouldn't miss this event for the world. 

BTW, playing in the outdoor heat isn't without precedent.  In September 1991, the Kings and New York Rangers played an outdoor exhibition game at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas that got as warm as 95 degrees during the game.  As you can imagine it created some significant challenges.  Via Melody Huskey at LAKings.com:

The weather itself did not provide difficulties during the game, but the conditions were less than ideal for creating the ice. Kings color commentator and former Kings forward Jim Fox was on hand to call the game with Bob Miller, but first he had to help out in preparing the ice.

“They had a sheet of ice in the back parking lot and they put a tarp over it elevated above the ice about six or eight feet to keep direct rays of the sunlight off the ice” said Fox. “But when they were taking the tarp down, they let the tarp hit the ice.

On top of that, grasshoppers made a strange appearance. 

“There were these big giant grasshoppers jumping on the ice” said Kings President of Business Operations and former player Luc Robitaille. “They would land on the ice and freeze right there, so by the end of the second period they were everywhere on the ice and it was kind of funny.”

Just over 22 years later ice rink technology has advanced significantly, so I wouldn't expect many issues, although the ice may still be less than ideal for a game.

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