LOS ANGELES _ "Trust falls" were not part of the team bonding activities for the Los Angeles Kings this week, although one exercise hit a similar note.
They were instructed to help each other over a 4-foot-high rope, one by one, without touching it, which left the last person stranded. Solution?
"Dustin Brown ended up being elected to do the Superman run-and-jump," Michael Cammalleri said. "It took a lot of trust, but he just ran and (did it with) a lot of arms and his legs."
Welcome to the Kings under coach John Stevens.
Team-building exercises are usually done later in a season, often on the road and sometimes during slumps. But with new faces on the roster and a break in the schedule, Stevens hired a group to put his players through problem-solving challenges Monday.
"It's kind of fun to see how everyone has their own personal traits," defenseman Christian Folin said. "Some people were more outgoing. Some people are more reserved in that way. You get a little bit more perspective into all the guys. You kind of know who takes the lead and who sits back. It's kind of helpful to know who's pushing a little bit more for the whole group."
It was the first time Stevens did the outing with the Kings. He has given similar individual tasks, where he asks a player to state the names of a teammate's children to see how well they know each other.
It's a different approach to better communication, in his eyes.
"I just thought that interaction where guys are forced to work together in some pretty significant challenges, where you've got to think a little bit, you've got to work together, you've got to commit to a plan," Stevens said. "All those things relate to what we do on a daily basis."
Stevens and his staff formed one of the four groups that competed against one another. Trevor Lewis said his group won, but Stevens joked that the three player groups were disqualified.
Said Folin of the outcome, "We were just chasing a pot of gold."
