AEG news shouldn’t affect Kings

With Thursday’s news that Los Angeles Kings owner Philip Anschutz would not be selling the Anschutz Entertainment Group, and that Kings Governor and AEG Vice President and CEO Timothy Leiweke would be leaving the company by a mutual agreement, I spoke briefly with Kings President of Business Operations and Alternate Governor Luc Robitaille about how these developments would affect the team’s operations. Several other topics covered with Robitaille will be posted throughout the weekend.

On whether he anticipates any changes in light of Philip Anschutz’s announcement:
“Nothing’s going to change from day-to-day operations. I run the business operations, and Dean runs the hockey operations, and the way it is right now is the way it’s going to stay. Our ownership group stays the same. A lot of us were discussing with Dan [Beckerman] from time to time, so we don’t see anything changing.”

On Dan Beckerman’s Los Angeles Kings ties:
“Probably a lot of people don’t know that, but Dan Beckerman started with the Kings, and so did Ted Fikre. Dan’s always been very passionate about the Kings. He was one of the happiest people in Los Angeles when we won the Cup, and it’s a lot to say that when he gets a night off, we’d see him with his family at the games. He just absolutely loves the Kings. From that standpoint, I don’t think our fans will lose anything from a passion point of view.”

On Tim Leiweke’s passion towards the Kings:
“We’re certainly going to miss Tim’s passion in our organization. I want to make sure that’s clear. Like, Dan has passion for our team, but it came from Tim’s passion, so it’s unfortunate he’s going to leave.”

Beckerman, who formerly served as AEG’s Chief Operating Officer / Chief Financial Officer, is one of the 52 people associated with the Kings to have their name engraved on the Stanley Cup. After serving as Vice President, Finance of the Los Angeles Clippers for two seasons, he joined the AEG as the Kings’ CFO in 1997.

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