<table> </table> As debuts go, the Sprint Center sparkled for its first National Hockey League game.</p><p>The ice shimmered beneath the skates of the St. Louis Blues and Los Angeles Kings during Monday night&#8217;s preseason game. The giant HD television screens below the scoreboards glistened. Blues organist Jeremy A. Bowyer hit the resonant keys familiar to St. Louis fans.</p><p>A third-period fight elicited a roar from the stands, and the cry, &#8220;Let&#8217;s Go Blues&#8221; and a foghorn signaling goals were right out of the Scottrade Center in St. Louis.</p><p>All that was missing was a killer crowd.</p><p>An announced crowd of 11,603 watched a Kings split squad defeat St. Louis 2-1 in the $276 million arena, which was curtained off in the upper deck in the south end of the 17,297-seat facility.</p><p>The lack of a near-sellout didn&#8217;t disappoint Karl Brooks, a die-hard hockey fan from Kansas City North.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a Monday night,&#8221; Brooks said. &#8220;And they didn&#8217;t start advertising in the paper until two weeks before the game.&#8221;</p><p>By time Monday night&#8217;s game was announced on May 29, the NHL preseason schedule was set. The Kings had a game scheduled in Los Angeles against Phoenix, so they brought a split squad to Kansas City. The Blues left some key players behind because they play Dallas tonight at home.</p><p>Paul McGannon, president of NHL21, a local grassroots organization dedicated to helping bring an NHL franchise to Kansas City, said he&#8217;s already requested a Saturday, Oct. 3 date for next year&#8217;s preseason game.</p><p>That&#8217;s assuming, of course, there&#8217;s not an NHL team playing in Kansas City by then.</p><p>Tim Leiweke, president of Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns the Kings and manages the Sprint Center, met with some business leaders before the game in an attempt to line up local ownership in the event a team becomes available after the 2008-09 season.</p><p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t think of any reason this doesn&#8217;t work here,&#8221; Leiweke said. &#8220;Kansas City has the best arena without a hockey team in the world. I didn&#8217;t look at this as an audition game (for the NHL). I&#8217;ll bet we have as many in here tonight as we have in LA. Preseason hockey the first couple of weeks in any market is a bit of a trick.&#8221;</p><p>Those who were on hand seemed to enjoy the game played mostly by young players wearing uniform numbers in the 50s, 60s, and 70s and trying to make their teams.</p><p>Joseph Eveler of Lee&#8217;s Summit and his son, Austin, 11, were clad in Blues sweaters while sitting in the first row of Section 225.</p><p>&#8220;These are great seats,&#8221; said Eveler, who grew up a Blues fan in Jefferson City. &#8220;I love the Sprint Center, my wife works for Sprint, and this town needs a hockey team, big-time. This town loves their Chiefs, but with the Chiefs not doing so well, they would definitely support a hockey team.&#8221;</p><p>Die-hard Kings fans Mike Makino and Jeff DeMooy made the trip from Los Angeles, even though they could have stayed home and watched a game at the Staples Center.</p><p>&#8220;We can see the Kings all the time in LA, so we figured we might as well come out here and see the new arena for ourselves,&#8221; said Makino, clad in a black and white Kings sweater.</p><p>DeMooy, wearing an old-school purple and gold Luc Robitaille sweater, and Makino will attend the Kings&#8217; preseason game on Saturday night in Las Vegas, a competitor with Kansas City for a future NHL team.</p><p>&#8220;I love Vegas and go there all the time,&#8221; DeMooy said, &#8220;but I think Kansas City would be better. &#8230; As long as they don&#8217;t take the Kings.&#8221;