Hammond's New Kings Blog

Rich Hammond's new Kings blog is up and running on the Kings website. Other than the location, expect nothing less than the great insight he was already providing over at Inside the Kings. In other words, only the address is changing.

Enjoy!

Kings Hire Beat Writer Hammond

The Kings on Wednesday hired Kings Daily News beat writer Rich Hammond for the same role with the team's official website. Hammond spent the last 10 years with the newspaper covering the Kings in numerous aspects, including the "Inside the Kings" blog, which consistently ranked as the top pro sports blog on the paper's website.

Hammond had this to say on his Daily News Kings blog just after the announcement was made.

In reaction to this, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban had this to say about the move.

At first, I wasn't sure why Cuban had not only responded to this kind of news, but why he responded the way he did. But after thinking about his background, and all of his endeavors as a businessman, it dawned on me that this sort of hiring is right up his alley.

A quick background: Cuban completely revolutionized television viewing and the industry as we see it today. He launched the first-ever high-definition channel for DirecTV in 2001. His HDNet now includes several different high-definition networks, and today, nearly every major network and cable network broadcasts in digital high-definition.

Cuban is also an avid and active investor in leading and cutting-edge technology. He uses his blog as a forum to share his thoughts and ideas on topics such as politics, entrepreneurship, as well as technology.

So how does this all tie in to the Kings hiring Hammond? Well, the newspaper as we know it is a dying breed. We've already seen the Daily News alone lose two of its top beat writers in Hammond, and former Dodger beat writer, Tony Jackson, because of the sign of the times. While the internet is now the number one source for the general public to get its daily news, papers such as the Daily News are starting to struggle to hang on to its precious insiders because of cost-cutting, including those like Hammond, who use their blogs as an avenue to give us information as they see and hear it without having to have their thoughts regulated by the powers that may be.

So the Kings hiring of Hammond to do just that makes perfect sense. Hammond will be able to provide the fans inside information directly from the team. And in the future, we'll probably see many more teams begin to hire beat writers like Hammond, not just in the NHL, but in all of the major sports.

Crawford Hired by Dallas; Pronger to L.A.?

First, the Chris Pronger reports.

There are unconfirmed rumors flying around the internet today that suggest the Kings are on the verge of acquiring Chris Pronger from the Ducks for Jack Johnson and the 5th overall pick in this year's draft next month. The rumor initiated on the website HockeyBuzz and made its rounds through the internet. Some media outlets picked up on the initial report as a done deal but have retracted it since. The rumor is nowhere to be found on any of the major national hockey media outlets such as TSN.ca, or even ESPN.com.

Several sources, including Rich Hammond of the Daily News on his Inside the Kings blog, have claimed to have received word from one team or the other that no deal is in place. Hammond says he received a "Rumor not true" text from Dean Lombardi himself. And granted Hammond broke the Patrick O'Sullivan-Justin Williams trade a day before it happened taht Lombardi denied at first, who's to say the trade won't still happen?

And for what it's worth, Pronger has said he has not been notified either.

However, one source says the two players are still likely to be traded as the teams try to haggle on the draft pick going from the Kings to the Ducks.

All that aside, I think this would be a ridiculously dumb move on the Kings part if they do anything close to it. I can't see the upside behind it when you're trying to build around the youth, and Jack Johnson is part of that youth movement. Obviously this would be a salary dump for the Ducks to get under the cap, but I don't understand it from the Kings side.

Either way, well done by both SoCal teams for stealing some of the thunder of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight in Detroit.

And lastly, former Kings head coach Marc Crawford was indeed hired as the Dallas Stars new head coach yesterday, a day after it was speculated they had called the Kings to ask for permission to talk to him after the Stars fired former Kings assistant Dave Tippett.