Per LAKings.com

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Kings will host the 2010 NHL Entry Draft at STAPLES Center, the National Hockey League and the Kings announced Friday. The annual Draft — which will take place June 25-26, 2010 — will be in Los Angeles for the first time ever.

“The Los Angeles Kings organization would like to thank NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, and Bill Daly, John Collins, Don Renzulli and the entire National Hockey League for awarding the Kings, STAPLES Center and the city of Los Angeles this prestigious event,” said Kings Governor Timothy J. Leiweke. “The fact that the Draft will be at STAPLES Center and at L.A. LIVE next June is very special to us as our team has been built largely through the Draft and our patience is being rewarded right now. L.A. LIVE is the event capital of the world and we are excited that the NHL Draft is the first of many League Drafts that L.A. expects to host in the future.”

“It has been terrific to watch the continuing evolution of the Los Angeles Kings, as well as the growth of hockey in the state of California,” said National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman. “With local youth programs producing an increasing number of elite players, we are extremely pleased to bring this showcase event to California for the first time.”

“This is a very exciting and this is a very special announcement,” said Kings President of Business Operations, Luc Robitaille, who was originally selected by the Kings in the ninth-round (171st overall) of the 1984 NHL Entry Draft. “The Draft is the place so many young players in our sport begin their professional careers and next summer the future of the NHL will be on display in Los Angeles. With the success of L.A. LIVE and our new incredible hotel opening in February, it is the ideal setting for yet another major sports and entertainment event to come to downtown Los Angeles. It is also another example that Los Angeles is a thriving hockey market with knowledgeable fans.”

“With the draft being here in L.A. next summer, maybe we can find another Luc Robitaille,” said Kings President/General Manager Dean Lombardi.

First priority for all Draft ticketing at STAPLES Center for June 25 and 26 will be given to Kings full season ticket members and STAPLES Center premier seat and suite holders. For official Draft ticket information, call 1-888-KINGS-LA or register for official Draft ticket information by clicking here.

The Kings’ current roster features eight players selected by the club in the annual NHL Draft including seven total players who were selected in the first-round (by the Kings or another NHL club). This list features Dustin Brown (13th overall in 2003), Drew Doughty (2nd overall in 2008), Alexander Frolov (20th overall in 2000), Anze Kopitar (11th overall in 2005), Jack Johnson (3rd overall by Carolina in 2005), Ryan Smyth (6th overall by Edmonton in 1994) and Justin Williams (28th overall by Philadelphia in 2000).

Since Lombardi assumed President/General Manager duties with the Kings, he has used the draft unlike any General Manager in team history to help implement his vision as he continues to build the Kings. Since 2006, Lombardi and the Kings have used 38 overall selections including six in the first round, five in second round and seven in the third round. The Kings have chosen at least one player in each of these rounds the last four years, and going forward the Kings have 10 selections in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft, including six in the first three rounds.

At the annual NHL Entry Draft, which began in 1969, the Kings have selected 385 total players including 32 in the first round, 40 in the second round and 38 in the third round. (The Kings had two selections in the NHL Amateur Draft – 1967 and 1968 – when there was only one round and different draft rules applied).

The highest draft selections the Kings have had in their history were the second overall selections (three times: Doughty, Jimmy Carson in 1986 and Doug Smith in 1981). The Kings have held a draft choice in the top five overall selections six other times (third overall: Aki Berg in 1995, Olli Jokinen in 1997; fourth overall: Larry Murphy in 1980, Wayne McBean in 1987, Thomas Hickey in 2007; fifth overall: Brayden Schenn in 2009).

Some other notable Kings draft picks over the years include the following: Butch Goring – Fifth-round (51st overall) in 1969; Billy Smith – Fifth-round (59th overall) in 1970; Dave Taylor – 15th-round (210th overall) in 1975; Jay Wells – First-round (16th overall) in 1979; Mark Hardy – Second-round (30th overall) in 1979 Jim Fox – First-round (10th overall) in 1980; Bernie Nicholls – Fourth-round (73rd overall) in 1980; Kevin Stevens – Sixth-round (108th overall) in 1983; Rob Blake – Fourth-round (70th overall) in 1988; Alexei Zhitnik – Fourth-round (81st overall) in 1991; Lubomir Visnovsky – Fourth-round (118th overall) in 2000; and Michael Cammalleri – Second-round (49th overall) in 2001.

Three players selected by the Kings are currently in the Hockey Hall of Fame – Robitaille, Murphy and Billy Smith.

The Kings began play in the National Hockey League in 1967 and the club has never hosted the NHL Entry Draft. In fact, for the first time in its 46-year history, the NHL Entry Draft will be held in the State of California. The 2009 Draft was held in Montreal as part of that organization’s Centennial celebration.

Defenseman Jonathon Blum, a native of Long Beach, California, and member of the 2007 Memorial Cup-champion Vancouver Giants of the Western Hockey League, became the first California-born and trained player to ever be selected in the first round (2007). Blum, claimed by the Nashville Predators with the 23rd overall pick, played his youth hockey with the California Wave before moving to the WHL.

Since 2001, 23 players have been drafted from the state of California, including nine in the last three draft years. Only five states in the U.S. have had more – Minnesota, Massachusetts, New York, Michigan and Illinois.

Long Beach, California native Emerson Etem is ranked fourth by NHL Central Scouting on its “Top 25 Western Hockey League Players to Watch” list for the 2010 Draft. Etem, a speedy center with great puckhandling skills, is second on his team — Medicine Hat Tigers — in goal scoring with 20.

The first round of the 2010 NHL Entry Draft will take place on Friday, June 25, beginning at 4 p.m. (PT). On Saturday, the draft concludes with rounds two-seven.

KingsCast Take: This is going to be a huge event for Los Angeles Kings fans. The Canadian media will descend upon Los Angeles for two days of hockey. I know we’re going, are you?

Luc Robitaille was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame this week. If you’re looking for a true Los Angeles Kings, Luc Robitaille is it. Enjoy his speech!

Check out the KingsCast Tribute to Luc Robitaille

Knocking off the defending Stanley Cup champions is such a good feeling! Losing to the lowly Nashville Predators is not. We take you through these games, interview PsychoHockeyLady and anoint one rabid ‘Fan of the Game.’ If you’re Coach Murray, what do you do what that 4th line?

Gann Matsuda of Frozen Royalty continues his tribute to Luc Robitaille on the eve of Luc’s Hall of Fame induction. Give it a read!

Robitaille The Leader

I’ve always admired people who were gifted with the quality of leadership, and when leadership and raw athletic ability are found together in one person, it’s a rare combination to be sure. I think that one of the things that I appreciate most about Luc is that not only does he possess this combination, but that it is manifested in him in a unique way. Luc brings a contagious passion to the rink every day and to everything he does. I found that being around that kind of passion and desire made the game even more enjoyable for me and challenged me to give to my full capacity.
— Former Kings tough guy Stu Grimson

Some of the “tenets of leadership” are:

* Every person has leadership potential
* Leadership development is an ongoing process to maximize individual potential
* With leadership training comes the responsibility for action
* Leaders have a responsibility to nurture emerging leaders

Moreover, strong leaders exhibit such characteristics as:

* Dispensing hope
* Foresightedness
* Integrity of character
* Sharing of oneself

(Source: J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership)

Hockey fans often judge the leadership skills of a player on what they see and hear, which is not unexpected because they must rely on the media for their information about the teams and players. However, even though there is so much more information available today because of the Internet, fans still have very limited information about the intangible aspects of the game, and that includes the leadership qualities of a specific player.

To be sure, very, very few fans would consider Robitaille to be one of the Kings’ great leaders. Instead, they would likely point to Wayne Gretzky, Dave Taylor, Marcel Dionne, Bernie Nicholls and Mattias Norstrom.

Read the article on Frozen Royalty

On the eve of Luc Robitaille’s induction to the Hockey Hall of Fame, we release this episode about the face of the Los Angeles Kings. Here we discuss what Luc has meant to the hearts of the fans of the LA Kings and pay our special tribute. What are your favorite memories of Luc?

Part one of Gann Matsuda’s tribute to Luc Robitalle. This will be an exciting series.

EL SEGUNDO, CA — Back on April 3, 1995, the night that all-time Los Angeles Kings great Dave Taylor had his jersey number 18 retired by the club, this reporter wrote that he was the King of Kings, earning that right above other all-time Kings’ greats such as Marcel Dionne, Rogie Vachon and Wayne Gretzky.

“No Kings’ player had ever measured up to Taylor when it came to heart, the desire to excel and win and the ability and willingness to go into the corners and sacrifice his body for his team,” I wrote. “No other Kings’ player has ever come close to Taylor as far as leadership—on the ice and off—is concerned, [and] no Kings’ player has ever matched his relentless work ethic, his dedication to his team, the game of hockey and his community.”

To be sure, Taylor had earned the right to wear the crown as the King of Kings, and was a great standard bearer for the organization, both on and off the ice. But on Tuesday, April 11, 2006, the day that Kings all-time great left wing Luc Robitaille announced at a press conference that he would retire at the conclusion of the 2005-06 season, Taylor immediately abdicated the crown because his reign is over. Robitaille now wears the crown as new Kings of Kings.

Read the rest at Gann Matsuda’s Frozen Royalty

Here is my short-and-sweet recap of Frozen Fury from last Saturday, September 26th where the Los Angeles Kings dueled the Colorado Avalanche. Frozen Fury X and Frozen Fury XI both ended in shootouts with the teams splitting wins, but this year the Kings managed to get the win in regulation. The game ended 5-3 with an empty netter by Wayne Simmonds with about one second left in the game.

But before I get to the game, I wanted to mention the players at Luc Robitaille’s Charity Poker Tournament held the Friday night before the game. A few observations:

• Matt Duchene was born in 1991 and is no where CLOSE to being allowed at the poker tables, but that didn’t stop him from joining the players at the tournament. If you don’t believe me, check out the picture I took with him up on facebook.
• It appeared that Ryan Smyth and Rob Scuderi are okay with wearing pleated pants in public.
• Anze Kopitar wasn’t looking too raccoon-eyed, so that was a nice change.
• Alexander Frolov had the girls lined up behind him. I noticed he was sans wedding ring and so did Marie!
• Jack Johnson was in a full pin strip suit and is so thick that he was like a mack truck walking around the tables.

Back to the game: overall the experience and game were up and down. The crowd walking into the Grand Garden Arena seemed more aggressively drunk than usual and the first period was worry inducing in that the Kings looked disorganized while the Aves skated with spunk. This poor showing took the life out of the not-exactly packed arena, but the noise returned when the Kings started getting the pucks past brand new Aves goalie, Craig Anderson. At the other end of the ice, Jonathan Quick wasn’t looking spectacular by any means, but this didn’t have me completely worried because of the predictability of an inevitable slow Kings start. There also was a definite lack of fights and more emphasis on actually playing like cohesive units, which caused the entire vibe of the game to be somewhat different than last year.

Standouts were definitely Jack Johnson, Simmonds, and Smyth. They were noticeable on the ice by actually being in the right spots and helping to create plays. One standout for not doing much of anything was Teddy Purcell. Talk about disappointing! Oscar Moller gets sent to Manchester and you don’t show up? Yikes. Also I didn’t EXACTLY agree with Kopitar getting first star of the entire game. Yeah, he scored on his penalty shot but didn’t stand out more than any other player. In sum, it was still good times; loved to see the excitement coming from the players and fans.

Check out the three-part video series of Overtime right here at KingsCast! Here’s the first!

*~*~*~*~*

How was Vegas you ask? Ummm, it was Vegas in that nothing really has changed except more construction has occurred since I had been there one year prior. The most notable part of the weekend was the drive back to Los Angeles. There were a grand total of 4 flipped cars on the road, 3-5 randomly stopped cars along the way, 3 Deloreans on the side of the road as well, traffic up the ying yang, and 100+ degree temperatures almost the entire way back. We are flying next year, no question!

*~*~*~*~*

Last update: Rich Hammond has officially started writing for the Kings at LA Kings Insider. Same content, different house.

The countdown to the pre-season has begun and your hosts of the KingsCast Hockey Podcast are prepping Season 4 of the show. That’s right, Kings fans, Matt “the Sound Guy” is dusting off the sound board, defragging hard drives and getting ready for us to rock the mic. We’ll have a brand new podcast for you hungry Los Angeles Kings fans sometime during training camp and the pre-season.

So, for the fans that have just joined us and the fans who have been with us since our first (and worst) season, it’s time for a refresher. And, with that, I give you my Top 5 favorite KingsCasts:

1. Luc Robitaille Special – (Season 1) It’s a rare thing to see a jersey retirement live but Chris and I got to see Luc Robitaille’s jersey retired in 2008 at Staples Center. Here we pay tribute to Lucky Luc, re-cap the games discuss the trade of Craig Conroy. Every time I hear our “Play Hard” chant in the beginning of the episode I just have to smile. There’s a few curse words in this one so, as much as you’d like to, don’t blast this at work!

2. 3rd Annual Season Finale – (Season 3) This is the episode where we started doing the show live. It was also the first time we had three of us on the show together. Here we talk about the ever-important off-season, conduct our end of season Awards show and debate whether or not we should keep the 5th overall pick in the draft.

3. Back in Black (and Purple – (Season 3) What’s really interesting here is that this episode was recorded in two places: Boca Raton, FL and Los Angeles, CA. That’s right, we did a few of these shows this way in Season 3 and it wasn’t easy. It’s painful to remember “the most important Kings off-season in recent history” resulted in us signing nobody. Rob Blake left the Los Angeles Kings for greener pastures in San Jose. Marc Crawford was fired. We were not anticipating a great season for Kings Hockey.

4. Season 2 Finale – (Season 2) It was then end of another terrible season of Kings Hockey under the Marc Crawford regime. Chris and I were a little upset that the Kings didn’t win the draft lottery. We believed that “Dean Lombardi was secretly hoping for us to lose the lottery”. Boy I’m glad we did. Where would we be without Drew Doughty? Also in this episode is one of our favorite segments entitled “See Ya”. Classic.

5. 1st Annual Christmas Special – (Season 1) You know we’re out for blood when we figure out a way to combine Eazy-E and Harry Connick, Jr. The Los Angeles Kings were playing some of their worst hockey ever. Dan Cloutier was in full effect, “manning” the goal crease for LA. By the sound of this episode, we could be Duck fans making fun of the Kings. Not so. Notice the terrible audio quality as we used to record the show in the kitchen. That said, this was a fun episode to make.

Which was your favorite?

If you’re a Los Angeles Kings fan, then you know that Hockey Fest ‘09 starts tonight in Downtown Los Angeles with a live acoustic performance by Eddie Kowalczyk of the band “Live”. Despite the 100 degree weather, the Kings are looking to put on quite a show this weekend.

Saturday you’ll have the opportunity to meet Dave Taylor, Marcel Dionne and Charlie Simmer of the Triple Crown Line in person. The stories this group must have as they made up one of the best lines in Los Angeles Kings history. This is my must-see event for Saturday. Also featured will be an enforcer panel and an NHL experts discussion. You’ll also have the opportunity to meet some of your current Kings and get some long-awaited autographs.

Sunday is the coup de grace for any Kings Fan as Bob Miller will be starring in his own one-man show at the Nokia Theatre. In this special performance, Bob will re-live many of his favorite (and funny) Kings moments. I absolutely cannot wait for this one. Also on Sunday will be a panel on “Growing Up Kings” with Jim Fox, Luc Robitaille, Bernie Nicholls and Mark Hardy where they will talk about growing up in the farm system and finally making the team. At 10AM, there will be a discussion with Terry Murray, Dean Lombardi and Ron Hextall where you’ll get the “inside scoop” on what’s happening with the team. Think of this as a condensed Breakfast with the GM.

Of course, KingsCast will be there as part of the media giving you up to the minute updates on Twitter as well as the blog. We’ll be trying to get a few interviews as well for you. Also, we’re hoping to meet some of you this weekend and get your take on this year’s squad on video for Overtime. Thanks for all of the support this off-season!

For more information, and to purchase tickets to the LA Kings Hockey Fest ‘09, click here. See you this weekend!

This is a heck of a video for the Los Angeles Kings fan. This organization is brewing. Expect big things from the LA Kings next year!