Good afternoon and welcome

My name is Marc Nathan and I welcome you to "kingspin," a hockey blog that will occasionally strike a chord, or a nerve with long suffering fans of the Los Angeles Kings.

I was born and raised in New York City, and began watching hockey when there were but six teams in the league. I was a precocious child who ended up memorizing the rosters of all of those teams, and knew the difference between Wayne Rivers and Wayne Maxner. I listened to Baltimore Clippers games on my transister radio, and heard names like Jean Ratelle, Gilles Villemure and Gord Labossiere before they became names I would associate with the National Hockey League.

My first NHL games were at the old Madison Square Garden on 50th Street (of course it is currently on 7th Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets.) Turns out that my very first NHL game was on March 14, 1965. My 10th birthday. I have memories of Red Sullivan coaching the Rangers, prior to Emile Francis taking the reigns, and of Gord "Red" Berenson playing in his first game of that season (64-65) after a recall to the Canadiens. Montreal won 6-4. I'm working on locating the box score. The next season, I saw the Bruins, and Pit Martin beat the Rangers. Trying to get more details on that game as well.

I saw a handful of NHL games from 1965 through the next ten years, and a few WHA games in 73-74 when NY had a team called the Golden Blades. Yes, they had gold blades on their skates and they migrated to New Jersey before the end of the season, becoming the Jersey Knights.

In April of 1975 I moved to San Francisco, and was promoted and transferred to Los Angeles in January of 1976. It was then that I truly caught the hockey bug the way it was intended.

I worked for a rather infamous record label called Casablanca (Kiss, Donna Summer,) but had spent the previous four years working for a label called Bearsville (Todd Rundgren, Foghat) which was distributed by Warner Brothers. I was friendly with a lot of the Warners people, and one day one of the bigwigs said, "Hey Marc, you like hockey, right?" and when I nodded affirmatively, he handed me the remaining Kings tickets for the 1975-76 season and I was now to spend the next seven years desperately trying to find three other people interested in attending games with me. I didn't take it personally. Hockey was not a popular sport in Los Angeles.

My geographic history to date is:

1955-1975: New York
1975-1976: San Francisco
1976-1983: Los Angeles
1983-1993: New York
1993-1995: Los Angeles
1995-2000: New York
2000-present: Los Angeles

I have essentially been in hockey seats the entire time. Sometimes as a season seat holder, sometimes as a frequent traveller. I haven't added it all up, but I have seen games in a minimum of 50 arenas, and in close to every province in Canada, as well as most of the United States.

This blog will drift back and forth between the past and the present, and will serve as an outlet for the things that I remember, and would like to perhaps forget ;)

Hockey is a kind of nirvana for me. I can't think of a place where I am more at peace. As soon as I am in my seat, staring at the great white sheet of ice, and anticipating a game that will not be like any other game I have seen previously, I am home. My standing joke is that I am not Canadian, but believe I was a goalpost at Maple Leaf Gardens in my last life. That building was perhaps my favorite, though I am loathe to admit, I never saw a game at the Montreal Forum. How is that possible? I've never seen a baseball game at Fenway Park. These things are incomprehensible to me. But, I have seen hundreds of games at the "fabulous" Forum and Staples Center, and I've been pretty audible and visible over the decades. Just ask Dave Hutchison and Glenn Goldup.

I hope you find a comfortable spot here, and I look forward to some memories, both past and future.

MN
3/3/08