Staples Center Mayhem

You think running a pro sports venue would be a great job, what with the perks of getting to watch a lot of terrific games?

Maybe most of the time Staples Center Senior Vice President and General Manager Lee Zeidman would agree, but not as this weekend approached.

As Thursday dawned, Mr. Zeidman had to be wondering how his building would accommodate two Lakers games, two Clippers games, two Kings games, and the crowded end of the country's largest stage bicycling race between that evening and Sunday night.

He knew serious overtime in Sunday afternoon's Kings game would seriously foul up the start of the Clippers-Spurs game scheduled to come later, even if his employees, exhausted from turning the venue from a hockey rink into a roundball arena or vice versa multiple times, could set a record for getting the basketball floor down over the ice surface. So he had to hope for a hockey result in regulation.

He also knew that the two-wheelers completing in the Amgen Tour of California would be rolling in just half an hour before the puck dropped. He could only hope that the free coffee and doughnuts he was offering would encourage lots of Kings fans to show up and take their seats really, really early, so the bicyclists wouldn't crash into them as they tried to reach the building. Then he had to hope Clips fans would show up late, so they wouldn't be trying to get in while the Kings fans were still trying to get out.

Or maybe, regarding Sunday night, Mr. Zeidman is hoping lots of people who hear this preface to potential chaos in L.A. will decide to catch the weekend's last two games on TV.