I have had the privilege of being the Kings’ blogger on Hockey Buzz for a full season. Along the way, I am thoroughly aware my perspective on expectations and seeing Kings’ players as people -- not just highly paid athletes is atypical. With Los Angeles’ very long off-season, this seemed like as good a time as any to shed some light on my humanistic perception of the ‘scoreboard’ world of defining success.
The timing of this blog has everything to do with critics of my last blog. I find it entertaining that the loudest folks were those who found it impossible to believe that the GM of the 29th ranked team could be doing anything right… or had a plan others should even fathom following.
We live in a world of instant gratification. Thanks to reality television, people can lose literally half of themselves right before our eyes as they do now in “The Biggest Loser”. You can tear down a house to nothing and have a new bigger, larger, more expansive home fully decorated while its occupants enjoy a family vacation at Disney World in “Extreme Make-Over Home Edition”. Surely with these ‘real world’ examples, this has to be possible to mere mortals such as you and I, right? ….well, not exactly or even close.
The truth is that most permanent change any person can make takes at least three weeks for simple things and far longer than that for significant things. Try and fathom doing this to an organization at two levels involving dozens and dozens of players and administrative personnel. This kind of upheaval and change can take years to get right. It just does.
I know this from personal experience. Sixteen years ago, I was in a car accident that took a decade of my life. The funny thing is that even with that high a price, the growth I made and the person I became as a result was worth every pain staking step and multiple surgeries.
When I look at the Kings pre-Lombardi, I see a team that had a plan to be competitive but no more. We could debate that game plan forever. Fans of any of the six Canadian teams will probably explain and rightly so how blowing up one of those franchises would never fly in Canada. I will leave that for others who know more to address. I do question whether the Leafs’ fans who demanded Lombardi’s remaining TNT supply before their late season surge for the play-offs, could really stomach the process and the losing.
Changing the culture of an organization is gratifying …..
on the other side of things when the team is winning and successful. In its early stages, it is painful to watch and could lead a sane person to drink. That just is. Lombardi’s harshest critics say with perhaps some credibility that at least with Taylor the team had a shot at the second season than they have with him. Heck, the team was never nearly dead last with Taylor, right?
It all depends if you live in a world where the glass is half empty or half full. Or even if you have a glass at all. I am a glass half full girl. Here is one of the reasons why. At the worst part of my injuries, my doctor told me I should think of something else to do for a living because physically, my body could never endure the rigors of being the workaholic lawyer that defined me then…
and now.
The saving grace and person who was most instrumental in my complete recovery was not the surgeon who saved my ability to use my arms, it was my psychologist. She told me my life would be restored to everything I ever dreamed of with one caveat. Deadlines and time estimates needed to get thrown out the window.
It would take as long as it takes. Truer words were never said.
The L.A. Times had an article after the Taylor firing and house cleaning that haunts me still. The Times explained that Kings’ organization had become a country club. Heck, the administrative offices were equipped with typewriters. Apparently, the Kings had failed to enter the new millennium. With Lombardi’s regime, things would now be different. And they certainly are, aren’t they?
Lombardi came aboard with Hextall and both most likely haven’t seen their families since… egad! And thank you. Fans were told that the days of seeing Kings’ draft picks come to fruition elsewhere were over. The kids would stay property of this organization and pan out … or not. Either way, if they did, Los Angeles’ fans would watch their own grow up before their eyes. And we are …
but in real world time. Hardly satisfying or easy to live with in a world of instant gratification. We all want it yesterday, but we will live with it now. Tomorrow, forget about it.
If sports fans could see their team as a group of individuals; rather than ranked units then perhaps a realistic time span for change would be easier to accept. If players’ salaries were equivalent to what mere mortals make, then it might be easier to see players as people and not commodities. The truth is we expect professional athletes NOT to be skin and bone people with real emotions, real families and fallible. The problem is salaries aside, super skills aside, athletes are people. We as fans have the right to project onto our teams the things we are not. Their ability to satisfy those inhuman expectations is another thing entirely.
I love what the Kings under Lombardi are doing. The organization may never be deeper or more on the right track than it is right now. The thing is that while this all plays out in real time, it is still easiest to presume that the 29th placed NHL team is doing nothing right. That is only accurate if Lombardi’s Kings are judged by their ranking; rather than the progress of the organization at the AHL and NHL levels. In a results’ only world, it is easier to give Lombardi an “F” and move on. That is too easy and too dismissive but very emotionally satisfying.
I get that. If we dismiss a losing team for where they are now, then we don’t have to hold a mirror up to ourselves and impose the same impossible expectations. Both would be wrong. If any of you met me ten years ago, I was far different if only for where I was from a health perspective. From there to the present, from my head to my toes, inside and out, I am transformed and all in a very amazing way.
If I were judged solely on how long it took, the grade would be an “F”. If others evaluated me on who I became, I would easily get an “A”. I encourage others to consider judging the Kings and this regime not only by the present, but by where Los Angeles was as an organization when Lombardi began, and where they are now by a measure less restrictive than solely the team’s overall ranking.
Carla Muller Carla.hockeygal@att.net 
Carla Muller
Why Gratification is Rarely Instant 
