All but one of the Kings players live there, as do the coach, Darryl Sutter, and general manager, Dean Lombardi. Most can walk or ride a beach cruiser to everyone else’s house. It is an unusual if not unique concentration that binds the team and turns a sleepy four-mile strip along the Pacific Ocean into an unlikely hotbed of hockey.

Think there is no widespread passion for the Kings among the sprawl of Los Angeles?

“I live here in Manhattan Beach,” Sutter said when a reporter wondered if the series in Los Angeles would help promote the game. “Everybody knows what’s going on with the Kings.”

Manhattan Beach, to the north of Hermosa Beach, is considered the tonier of the two, its high-end strip of boutiques and restaurants hugged by beach on one side and some of California’s most expensive real estate on the other. Its southern end blends seamlessly into smaller Hermosa Beach, which is similarly quiet but has a tight concentration of bars and restaurants near the town’s pier that attract bar-hoppers at night and sun-bleached dropouts during the day.

The Kings are scattered evenly across the two towns. Some are clustered within a block or two of several teammates; others sprinkled little more than a mile or two away. The only holdout is defenseman Willie Mitchell, who lives with his wife in Venice, about 20 minutes up the coast.