LeBrun - Kings president Luc Robitaille on growing hockey in LA and his teams next step
# LeBrun - Kings president Luc Robitaille on growing hockey in LA and his teams next step
# Contributors
# Summary
As I arrived for our interview last week at his Manhattan hotel, Luc Robitaille was wrapping up a business meeting. Every minute counts. There was no breather between that meeting and our interview. That’s how Robitaille rolls, jamming his days as he balances the business side of running the Kings with his hockey operations duties.
# Players
# Staff
# Notes and Quotes
# Luc Robitaille
Whenever we come to the East Coast, we make sure we go to the league’s office, just to make sure we have a relationship there
I don’t think there’s a more competitive sports market,” Robitaille said. “But we look at it like: We have our core fans, (and) we know when we have success, we’ll grow the brand.
But that being said, we’ve got to be successful. We know that. When we go through something like a rebuild — and we kind of had the same strategy in a way in 2007 when Dean (Lombardi) came, (and) I remember at the time we figured, ‘Let’s just really communicate with our core fans. Let’s make sure they understand what we’re doing. And then when we’re successful, they’ll tell everyone else.’
It’s definitely a tough market, but I don’t believe we compete with the other teams. I think we compete for our fans, and when we have success, they’re riding along with us.
Definitely if you would have said we’re going to be missing Drew Doughty for this amount of games and, at some point in January, the six defensemen we had in our opening night lineup weren’t playing, and then we still got into the playoffs … I would have said there’s no way that was going to happen.
So, we’re real happy with where we’re at. We’re exactly where we set out to be. We know this year we’re going to compete for the playoffs again. And the goal is to get the team to a place where, listen, it’s always hard to make the playoffs, but there’s a few teams in this league that you know when you start the season if they play to their level they’re going to be in. And then they’re trying to get to the next level of winning.
We’re not quite there yet. We think we’ll be there in a couple of years. But that being said, we’re competing for it now, and once you get into the tournament, it’s anybody’s game.
It’s definitely Blakey’s low-key approach. It’s just the way he is. He’s very low-key. He just wants to go about his job. We all respect that. He’s not going to change ever.
There’s a few guys, it’s kind of funny, I always put Joe Sakic, Stevie Yzerman, they’re in that bucket with Blakey. They’re quiet, they go about their job, they work extremely hard, they’re very strategic. They don’t panic. They seem to have the same low-key approach where they’re steady. So we feel pretty fortunate to have Blakey on board.
I try to split my days now, I spend time with Blakey and we’ll spend time with hockey ops in the morning. And then as the day keeps going, I’ll have all my business meetings scheduled and so forth. So it’s a little bit of a split in the day. And we stay in contact (with Blake). So that’s what has changed probably the most. I spend more time listening and being part of the direction we’re going as an organization on the hockey ops side.
I love the game. I was lucky enough to play with Wayne Gretzky, whose passion for the game is, I mean, he would always talk about how it’s the greatest game and so forth. I always loved the saying.
I always look at it like, what can we do to grow the game? To make it better and so forth. I think we’ve taken some major steps.
The deal with ESPN was big. Because when you’re a young person who works in a bar in the U.S. and you come in for your shift at 4 p.m., the first thing you do is turn on the TVs, and you turn on ESPN no matter what.
TNT is the first show in the U.S., hockey-wise, where you can’t wait to see what’s going to happen between periods. It’s like I can’t wait to see what they’ll see next between periods. It’s a good thing. It’s entertainment.
A lot more kids are going to D-1, getting drafted.
We followed up with the little Kings program, and it’s been tremendous growth on that. The Ducks started buying or making sure rinks weren’t closing. During the last three years during COVID, I think we’ve acquired six rinks or so. It’s really helping the growth of hockey.
We’re seeing more and more players. If we could build five more rinks, we’d fill them up right now. It’s a great problem to have.
Like a USHL or junior league coming out to the West Coast. We’re going to be behind it. It’s the next step that could be really good. We’d really like to get that done. That’s a big push.
# Rob Blake
Our relationship had been formed when we played together and has continued that way in our (front office) positions now. We share a similar vision on how the team plays and how the organization operates. He is very passionate about the game of hockey and what it means to play for the L.A. Kings.