Los Angeles Times January 28th 1996

What's black and white and red all over?

Once upon a time, it was a National Hockey League game. Black puck. White ice. Red residue from broken noses, dispossessed teeth, facial lacerations and the routine gaping wound soon to require 20 stitches.

The game had a simple beauty then, back when "the Original Six" was a reference to what could be found on Bobby Hull's dental X-rays.

But that was before Fox and Disney got ahold of the color control and kept twiddling and twisting knobs until the puck had a blue glow and a red tail and the Battle of Los Angeles became an eye-popping spectacle won by the Purplebeards, 5-4, over the Screaming Teal Wild Wings.

Was that really Wayne Gretzky skating across the Forum surface in a silver-gray sash with the mug of King Vitamin, borrowed from a 1970s cereal box, adorned to his chest?

And what was Wild Wing doing on the front of every Mighty Duck's jersey, crashing up through the ice instead of crashing down onto it?

The official NHL explanation was that these were two of the five Third Jerseys introduced by league members on Saturday. In Boston, the Bruins unveiled a honey-gold top featuring the head of a rather contented, docile-looking grizzly surrounded by fake fur trim. (Animal-rights activists were not offended, but they were the only ones.) In Vancouver, the Canucks trotted out a jaunty crimson and black number destined to turn their best player into Raspberry Bure. In Pittsburgh, the conservative Penguins daringly stepped out and added three thin racing pinstripes to their customary black shirts.

And in Inglewood, Third Jerseys were worn by the Ninth and Eleventh Teams in the Western Conference, which gave their fans a visual diversion from the squandered power play and the missed open net.

So in that regard, the Third Jerseys of the Kings and the Ducks cannot be considered wholly bad things. They gave Ron Wilson something different to talk about after a defeat and they bought players on both sides a few precious seconds before spectators could figure out who to jeer.

"It's a little more difficult to recognize the players," Kings goalie Kelly Hrudey observed. "At times, it was hard to pick out the numbers."

This is because the Kings placed purple numbers on top of their silver-gray sashes and the Ducks doodled their numbers in a sort of paint-squiggle that had most in the Forum muttering, "What's Kariya doing wearing No. 7?"

Why a third jersey?

Why else--it's something to sell. Replicas of the Kings' new shirt were being hawked at Forum concession stands Saturday. Price tag: $120. And at the same time, at Disney stores in Brea and Anaheim, the Ducks' third jerseys were made available, at a comparative bargain of $95 per unit.

Why these third jerseys?

The idea, supposedly, was to incorporate elements of a particular team's history and tradition in a fresh, updated look. Hence, the Kings brought back the purple and gold of the Marcel Dionne days, a color scheme that was reviled at the time, but after Saturday's exhibition, you know, on second thought . . .

The old King jerseys, with the oversized crown on the front, at least had something of a regal air about them. The new ones have . . . what? The Evil Viking King of the Northlands--"Old Purplebeard," as he was known by his minions--glowering over the left breast?

The Ducks, of course, have no tradition, so they turned the clock as far back as they could--to the 1992 movie that spawned their very existence. Those Mighty Ducks also wore green shirts with a busy, hard-to-discern design on the front. "Loud," Wilson calls them. And, they paid homage to the most renowned aspect of the Mighty Duck hockey experience--their ever-embattled mascot--although, if these third jerseys were an accurate representation, Wild Wing would have been engulfed in orange flames, his tail feathers smoldering.

"At least they made sure he was going in the right direction," Wilson said with a laugh.

"I love the Kings' uniform--it's very European. Ours takes some getting used to . . . It's certainly different. But our {usual} uniform is so much more unique that they had to go a ways to come up with something different. I'm sure this will be hard for some of the purists to stomach."

Gretzky was asked for his opinion of the Kings' new look.

"Uh . . .," he began, pausing for several seconds and apparently deciding he'd had enough controversy for the time being.

"Uh, I liked them," he insisted. "I like the crest. It's a little more creative than what we've been wearing."

Most of all, Gretzky liked what happened while the Kings were wearing them.

For the first time in nine games, the Kings actually won.

"Any kind of change," Gretzky noted, " is good for us right now."

Down the hall, Wilson was scolding his players, not the graphic designers, for getting "too fancy."

Wilson suggested that "if you added up the career goals in our dressing room right now, you'd get a lot less than 500. It'd probably be close to 200. Add up the goals in the Kings' dressing room and it'd be almost 3,000. We're the young upstarts, yet we're doing drop passes, behind-the-back passes, off-the-skate passes.

"We came out wanting to be as cute as our jerseys. Some say those jerseys are ugly. Well, we played like that. We played ugly hockey."

No in-the-eye-of-the-beholder disclaimer necessary.