Is Kansas City more of a hockey town than Los Angeles?

On the surface, you might not think of Kansas City as a hockey town. Instead, your sports mind probably first takes you to baseball's Royals or football's Chiefs.

But, eight miles down the road from the home stadiums of those two teams, a pair of NHL hockey clubs will square off in a sold out arena - setting a pre-season attendance record for games held in non-NHL cities.

Get out your time machine though, because today's New Jersey Devils were once the Colorado Rockies and before that, they began as the Kansas City Scouts.

The city was awarded an NHL franchise in 1972. Two years later they began play in Kemper Arena, along with the Kings. No, not the LA Kings, but the NBA's Kansas City Kings - who had been the Cincinnati Royals for decades prior, but changed their name to the Kings, so not to be confused with the local baseball team.

Speaking of the LA Kings, remember those two dismal stretches last season when the team was struggling to win games? That pales in comparison to what the Scouts went through in their second season.  First, they went winless in 16 games coming out of the Christmas break. They finally won a game, then began another downward spiral - finding a way to go twenty-seven games without a win down the stretch and finished 1-35-8 in their final forty games.

They didn't make the playoffs that year. Just sayin'.

The Scouts weren't the area's first hockey team though.

Kansas City's pro hockey history began in 1928, with the Pla-Mors of the American Hockey Association.

Drew Doughty, Davis Drewiske and their link to Kansas City

Inside the Sprint Center, Kansas City

Tonight's NHL pre-season game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Los Angeles Kings is sold out.

Now, I'm not sure if hockey fans in Kansas City are similar to the ones in California. But, I'm going to assume there is one major difference - when they look over the game rosters, they're going to skip right past names like Dustin Brown, Mike Richards and Anze Kopitar. The name they're probably most excited to see this evening is Davis Drewiske.

Wait...Davis Drewiske?

Yes, it was LA's seldom-used defeseman who scored the very first goal in the new building, back in 2008.

The game-tape - if there even is any - will show it wasn't a highlight reel goal though. In fact, with the Kings on the penalty kill, Drewiske was simply trying to clear the puck. The shot on goal wasn't picked up by St. Louis Blues goaltender Chris Mason and the Kings were up 1-0 early in the second period.

They held on to win the game 2-1, with the other goals coming from Brad Richardson (Kings) and Paul Kariya (Blues).

Something else took place that night that probably meant little, if anything, to the 11,603 in attendance - Drew Doughty played his first NHL game.

I think it's probably safe to assume there were a few more people hoping to see him tonight than even noticed him on the ice last time.

So, come to think of it, maybe hockey fans in Kansas City and Los Angeles do have something in common after all.

Here are the projected line-ups for the game.

Kansas City - Loving Hockey since 1928

So you think you've had it rough as a long suffering Kings fans? I know, misery since 1967, with few bright spots along the way. Well, how about the fine folks of Kansas City - they were awarded their first pro team back in 1928. In January of that year the Pla-Mors of the American Hockey Association opened up their inaugural season. Nothing good has really happened in KC since, at least hockey wise. Teams have folded, been sold, skipped town, changed leagues and pretty much come and gone more like trade shows arriving for a weekend at the local Convention Center, rather than teams setting up shop for the long haul.


The NHL got into the action in 1974 with the debut of the KC Scouts. However, KC's link to the Kings began a few years earlier when the Kings and St Louis Blues were part of the NHL's "Expansion Six" in 1967. To help support the big club, the Blues put a CHL team in KC named...the Kansas City Blues.

Several players from the Kings inaugural run in '67-68 eventually ended up skating with the KC Blues. Guys like Bob Wall, Brent Hughes, Larry Johnston (all of 4 games) and Terry Gray all played in Los Angeles during that first season only to later end up in KC.

Later Kings teams featured players that had previously done time in KC - Doug Barrie (LA '71-72), Frank St. Marseille (LA '72-77), Sheldon Kannegiesser (LA '73-77), Darryl Edestrand (LA '77-79) and another "just four games" member - Bart Crashley ('75)

Then there was Rick Lapointe, having skated in KC earlier in his career, he ended up playing nearly 100 games with the Kings between '84-86 before calling it a career.

While the expansion teams in KC and Washington were certainly news back in 1974, the biggest change came with the league restructuring into four divisions. The Kings would now play in the Smythe Division. Nearly 20 years later, the Kings would win their lone division title, before newly appointed commissioner Bettman and the NHL changed things again - this time going with the (supposed) more fan friendly Pacific division.

Random Ramble - I'm usually not in the same camp as people clamoring for the "old days" of sports. I'm not a hard core traditionalist. I will say though, one thing I sure wish they would bring back are the traditional names of the divisions. I highly doubt one more fan follows hockey today because of the divisional name changes. Hockey - and most sports in general - have such a strong sense of history, I liked it better when the Kings played in the Smythe. Thankfully, they never changed the name of the Stanley Cup.

Keeping with the fine hockey tradition of KC, those Scouts didn't last long back in the mid-seventies. They played just two seasons in KC before packing up and heading to Colorado. Long before the baseball Rockies were hitting home runs in Denver, there were the Rockies on ice. Some of the KC "magic" must have come with them, as by 1982 the moving vans were in town again. The franchise was on its way to New Jersey and well, the rest is history...with three Stanley Cups to show for their troubles.

While success for the former KC team was being achieved in Jersey, KC hockey was back on the map again in 2004. The KC Outlaws of the UHL debuted with head coach Darryl Williams. Although the ties to the Kings weren't strong, they were there - with the coach having played a whopping TWO games in Los Angeles (coincidentally during the infamous 92-93 season). During 2004-05, their only season of operation, KC finished last in the Western Conference. Sound familiar?

In a footnote that Ron Hextall could appreciate, Michel Plasse of the KC Blues was the first professional goalie to record a goal on Feb 21, 1971. However, Plasse apparently doesn't share the gift of gab with Hextall. News reports after the game quoted Plasee as saying "I wasn't trying to score, I was just clearing the puck out of our zone." Come on guy, have some flare. At least say you were aiming for the net and got lucky it went in or something.

Kansas City's link to LA continued last year when the Kings arrived in town for an exhibition game in the area's new AEG arena. It was a memorable night for a few of the young Kings - Davis Drewiske scored the first goal in the new building, wunderkind Drew Doughty made his NHL debut and Jon Quick stopped all 19 shots he faced. And the Kings won.

What type of new links will be formed tonight?

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photo courtesy of kcnhl.blogspot.com