"GRETZKY EFFECT" LINGERS IN CALIFORNIA The Los Angeles Times lays out how Wayne Gretzky is long gone from the Kings and long retired from the NHL, but the impact of his presence in Los Angeles is being felt more strongly than ever in the increasing success of youth hockey players who were born and trained in Southern California. L.A. Junior Kings AAA team, composed of kids born in 1996 and 1997 — Gretzky was dealt by the Kings to the St. Louis Blues on Feb. 27, 1996 — will play for the USA Hockey national championship this week in Pittsburgh. Louis Pacella co-coaches the team and notes the impact on him personally of Gretzky arriving in Los Angeles in the summer of 1988. Pacella became a hockey fan because Gretzky became a King, and that triggered a chain of events Pacella couldn’t have predicted. In fact, Pacella said, he saw former Kings owner Bruce McNall at a playoff game last spring and made a point of thanking McNall for acquiring Gretzky from Edmonton. “I went up to him and told him, ‘If it wasn’t for what you did bringing Wayne Gretzky here, my life would probably be very different,’” Pacella said. “I doubt I would be involved in hockey, and that’s how I met my wife, that’s how I have my three kids, and a lot of my business has come from it. One little thing has a huge impact. “I know I would not be coaching at the level I’m coaching at right now, being involved with hockey, if it wasn’t for the Wayne Gretzky effect. That just continues because you have people like me who started when Gretzky was around that are now coaching and involved with the next generation of youngsters.”