"Throwback Thursby" and I enjoy trading old-fashioned headline terms from sports like "harriers," "cagers," "keglers," "matmen," "mermen" and "thinclads."

Los Angeles’ nearly ready sports arena was making the city prime target for sports gossip. When would a basketball or hockey team follow the Dodgers?

Times Sports Editor Paul Zimmerman reported that the NBA wanted to know what 1959 dates were open for the L.A. Sports Arena and the Cow Palace in San Francisco. "Obviously [league president Maurice Podoloff] wants to be prepared with a schedule for franchises coming west next fall," Zimmerman wrote.

The Times’ Jeane Hoffman wrote on Jan. 30 that NHL officials were looking over the Cow Palace even though the arena "has no hockey floor at present." The Sports Arena "will have all facilities," Hoffman added, just in case the NHL people were curious.

Then the story got weird, strongly suggesting that the Rams were interested in owning a hockey team too.

Sports arena official Bill Nicholas told Hoffman about a 1955 letter from the Rams’ Tex Schramm to NHL president Clarence Campbell asking to be considered if a franchise was awarded to L.A.

The Rams on Ice?

"Bert Rose, current Ram publicist, confirmed that ‘there is interest among Ram owners in both a hockey and basketball franchise but we feel basketball is much more imminent,’ " Hoffman wrote.

One other note–Nicholas said the Sports Arena will "never settle for second-rate hockey." There’s a Kings’ joke there somewhere.

–Keith Thursby