LAist Interviews Helene Elliott

You were on the East Coast for awhile, right?

I went to college at Northwestern and while I was there I started working for the Chicago Sun-Times on a part-time basis. They hired me when I graduated so I was at the Sun-Times for about two and a half years. After that I went to Newsday [New York] and I was there for ten years. I've been at the LA Times since late 1989.

Did you ever think you'd end up in a West Coast market?

No, I never really imagined it. I used to sit at home and watch Mets games on TV. You would see Dodger Stadium with palm trees in the pavilion. I used to think "Wow, that's like another planet." I couldn't imagine I would be there. It's funny, the twists and turns that life takes.

Was there anything that surprised you about life and sports in Los Angeles?

The one thing I loved was that you can watch two games in a day because of the time difference -- in particular a basketball game or a hockey game. You get an East Coast game that starts at 4:30pm Pacific and then you get a Pacific game. You can get double headers every day. It was like paradise.

Southern California fans often get a bandwagon reputation. Have you noticed that with hockey and the Ducks?

I think there are bandwagon fans in every sport. There were years when the Lakers were not filling seats. When it wasn't chic to go to Laker games you wouldn't see all these movie and TV stars sitting courtside. I think it's human nature; you want to associate yourself with a winner and you don't want to invest financially or emotionally in a team that's not going to be a winner and isn't going to content for a championship. I think that the one team that seems to have common ground in Los Angeles is the Dodgers. I think that's almost a central meeting point for everybody. Baseball, in terms of ticket prices and the number of games on TV, is so accessible. I think that everybody has some experience at some point in their lives in Los Angeles with either being an avid Dodger fan or even just a casual Dodger fan. Just going to Dodger Stadium seems to be part of the cultural experience of living in LA.

You've been up to Ottawa to cover the finals -- what impression do you have of their fans?

Hockey is part of life in Canada -- and I don't just mean the NHL. Whereas you might go out with your friends and play a game of pickup basketball afterwork or on the weekend, in Canada a group of friends will get together and play pickup hockey. Hockey is just such an important part of everyday life there. It's not just a sporting event, it's a social event. It's obviously not that way in Southern California, but it's really nice to go up there and see how excited and how into it the fans are. There are car flags, there are signs in office buildings along the freeways saying "Go Senators." The fans are really enthusiastic. It's nice. This is a once in a lifetime thing for most people. There used to be a team in the 1920s and it was very successful but it eventually left town. This incarnation of the Ottawa Senators have the same name as the old team but it's not a continuous operation. This team's only been around since the 1990s. It went through some very tough times including a bankruptcy not so long ago. A lot of people who are hockey fans went through a lot of suffering with this team for a long time. It's really nice to see their enthusiasm and see how genuinely excited they are by having the Stanley Cup Finals there.

Back home, where's your favorite place to watch a game?

One of the wonderful things about hockey is also one of the drawbacks; it's such a great game to watch in person. The only reason I say drawback is that it doesn't translate well to television. That's always been one of the game's problems. You really need to be in the arena to get the full sense of the speed and the strategy and the outright skill and just the toughness of these guys. These guys will get cut in the face with a stick and get stitches and you'll see blood dripping down their faces -- and they'll barely miss a shift. These guys are really, really tough. They're just incredible with this work ethic and really refreshing "team first" mentality that you don't always see. That said, TV can't always capture that, and it's too bad. I think you really need to be in the arena to get the sense of the speed and the action and the changing on the fly and all these things that go on.

Are there any drawbacks covering a game from the pressbox? It must be hard to see the puck from up there.

Some of us writers were talking the other night about Calgary and Edmonton. The press boxes are accessed by catwalks. The press box in Calgary is actually suspended over the crowd so you're very, very high up. You're right, you miss some of the nuances that you might get if you were lower. You can't hear the players shouting for passes, for example. In the old building where the Philadelphia Fliers played - the Spectrum - the press box was maybe 15 rows up from the ice. It was fabulous because you were in the middle of the crowd, but you were right behind the benches so you could see what was going on on the bench. You could hear players talking to each other on the bench and hear players yelling for passes. Of course, for many owners and most arenas, a press box is kind of an afterthought. A press box doesn't generate money for them, so they'll put it way up high in a place where they couldn't put a suit and sell it for an exorbitant amount of money.

When the game is over, do you get down to the locker rooms and get to know the players better?

After a game, if you're on deadline, there isn't much time to do prolonged interviews. You can go to a practice and really get to know guys. I think that's the best time to sit down with somebody and get a sense of what their life was like growing up. That's the thing about sports, and I think too many writers forget it. You're writing about people, you're not just writing numbers, and you should remember that you're writing about people. Everybody has a different motivation. There are some athletes that thrive under pressure. Some athletes freeze up under pressure. What makes each athlete react the way he does? What makes one athlete hustle to first base and another one not? Those are the things I love to find out. Just sitting and talking to some guys on the Ducks, some of these guys grew up on a farm. I'm from Brooklyn, I wouldn't know what to do on a farm if I went to one. It's fascinating to find out. Travis Moen, this time of year he's normally back on his family farm helping out with the chores from sunrise until sunset. It's just interesting getting a peak into somebody else's life.

Are there any stories that people should be watching out for right now?

The Ducks this season have created a reputation of being a tough team. As you see in every sport, when a team wins a championship with a certain style or a certain strategy, everybody tries to copy it. I'm wondering if the Ducks win the Stanley Cup if other teams will try to add muscle and what they call "character players" and be as aggressive of a team as the Ducks have been this season.

Jean-Sebastian Giguere, the goaltender for the Ducks, is [another great story]. He's an upright, outstanding, terrific guy. He's a basic, down-to-earth, blue collar guy. His dad drives a school bus (I've met his family). Just a decent human being and an excellent player. He was named MVP of the playoffs in 2003 even though the Ducks lost in the Stanley Cup finals. He's overcome a lot of adversity in terms of some health problems he had. He's been their backbone all through the playoffs this year, but he's going to be a free agent on July 1st.

Do you think he could wind up with the LA Kings?

That would be interesting. If the Ducks don't resign him by July 1st he could go anywhere. I'm very, very interested to see how this plays out. I suspect the Ducks would like to keep him, but with the salary cap there's only so far you can stretch your payroll. Chris Pronger gets a lot of money, Scott Niedermayer gets a lot of money, and if Teemu Selanne comes back he deserves a lot of money, and so do a bunch of other people. The math may be hard to work out, but I'd love to see the guy back. I think he wants to stay, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for him to be a free agent and to take care of his family. You can't blame him for being curious as to what he'd be worth in the open market. I think anybody in any profession would love that chance.

Sticking with the Kings, how can anybody be a fan right now?

You have to give the Kings fans an enormous amount of credit for being as loyal as they have been for a team that has given precious little to be loyal about. Yes, their attendance fell off last season. I don't blame people. They've been hearing promises for such a long time about the Kings being a competitive team. Then here come along the Ducks, making their second appearance in the Stanely Cup Finals in four years. The Kings, in 39 seasons, have only gone once. I can certainly understand that fans are frustrated. The Kings were giving away tickets last season and you hate to see that happen in any sport. I think there's a very, very loyal core that they have. Over the recent years I think they've alienated that core, and once they loose that bedrock group they'd be in real trouble.

If you were in the King's front office, what would you do?

Go after Giguere, maybe. I think that Dean Lombardi, the new General Manager, has a track record in his previous job in San Jose of drafting well, developing young players, and filling in specific needs by trading. Say you have a surplus in defensemen and you need a forward, maybe you can trade with somebody. I think people look at Phil Anschutz, the King's owner, and say, "He's a billionaire. Why doesn't he just spend money and get all the free agents?" You can't do that in hockey anymore. There's no guarantee that just going out and paying big money to people is going to build a winning team, anyway. It's not how much money you spend, it's how well you spend it.