Doughty, Dubois try new sports after Kings practice in Australia

MELBOURNE, Australia -- It's not every day you see Drew Doughty trying to return a serve from Australian tennis star Thanasi Kokkinakis. It's not every day you see Pierre-Luc Dubois practicing drop punts with Australian rules football star Mason Cox.

Then again, it's not every day you see the Los Angeles Kings in Australia.

Doughty and Dubois each gained a new appreciation for another sport Wednesday, while hoping Australians gain a new appreciation for hockey when the Kings and Arizona Coyotes play two preseason games at Rod Laver Arena on Saturday and Sunday in the 2023 NHL Global Series – Melbourne.

"It's always fun to get out of your comfort zone a little bit and learn about other things, and that's what I came here to do today," Dubois said. "And I'm really happy we got to do this."

After practice Wednesday, Doughty and Dubois walked from Rod Laver Arena to Kia Arena in Melbourne Park, home of the Australian Open tennis tournament. Doughty met Kokkinakis, who won the Australian Open men's doubles title with Nick Kyrgios in 2022. Doughty picked up a racket. Dubois held a camera, playing photographer.

Doughty used to play tennis with his buddies growing up in London, Ontario. He once had a tennis court in his backyard and watches tennis tournaments on television. As he warmed up, the defenseman looked like a tennis player, smoothly volleying with the pro.

"Not bad," Kokkinakis said. "You can tell he'd played before. Intimidating figure down at the other end. Not going to lie."

But then Doughty encouraged Kokkinakis to let loose with some full-power serves, and unfortunately for him, Kokkinakis did.

"Here it was coming, and I'm just, like, panicking to get it," Doughty said. "All I got is the backspin shot back, and then he just goes up and smashes it for a winner. Yeah, I got no chance of ever becoming something in tennis."

That's OK. Kokkinakis said he needs to lean on a chair to ice skate, can't keep track of the puck on television and can't imagine how his body would feel after taking hits in a hockey game. He said he would try to see a game at Rod Laver Arena, where the NHL is building an ice rink on top of the tennis court where he won a major doubles title.

"It's pretty cool having an ice hockey game there," Kokkinakis said. "I haven't experienced that before, and I'm curious to see how it turns out."

Later in the afternoon, Dubois walked across Olympic Boulevard to AIA Vitality Centre, home of the Collingwood Magpies of the Australian Football League. Dubois met Cox, who grew up in the Dallas area watching Mike Modano play for the Dallas Stars.

Cox said he wasn't made for hockey. He's 6-foot-11.

"I think whenever my shoe size got to 16 or 17, they stopped making skates, so that's my excuse," Cox said with a laugh. "I don't think a tall giraffe like me would probably go well in the NHL, to be honest. The center of gravity's probably a bit off."

Cox's height has served him well otherwise. He went from walking on as a basketball player at Oklahoma State to starring in a sport he had never played before on the other side of the world. He is a ruckman, a key position typically played by tall, athletic players who can take hits and control the ball.

What's tougher? Hockey or Aussie rules football?

"AFL, without a doubt," Cox said with a laugh, pointing out the field is massive, the running is endless, the physicality is intense and the rules are, well, you know. "Pretty much anything goes, which is sometimes scary to think, but it's good fun."

Dubois said it was 50-50 between hockey and Aussie rules, except for one thing.

"I will say they have no equipment, and they go just as hard," he said. "The contact, the physicality of their sport with no equipment, is really impressive. Obviously, hockey, we block shots. But I mean, getting an elbow in the face also hurts with no equipment."

Dubois and Cox walked out onto the training ground, and the forward learned how to drop punt. He doesn't have Cox's gigantic hands, so it was harder to hold the ball than he thought. He found out that you want some backspin on the ball and that there are other types of kicks too.

"It's a lot more complicated than it looks," Dubois said.

The Kings and Coyotes will watch the Magpies face the Greater Western Sydney Giants in the AFL Preliminary Finals, better understood as semifinals to North Americans, before about 95,000 fans at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday.

"It's going to be a potentially once-in-a-lifetime experience," Dubois said. "That's what's really fun about this trip. It's just, day after day, you get to experience new things."

Australians will get to experience something new when the Kings and Coyotes play Saturday and Sunday in the first NHL event in the Southern Hemisphere. Listen to an American who learned an Australian sport.

"I think this is the first step really to be able to get people to get interested in [hockey]," Cox said. "I was talking to somebody else today. It's miracle of the Internet now, right?

"Like, everyone has access to any sport they want to be able to view, so this is kind of an amazing thing to bring that exposure to people who have been following it for a long time and people that will start following it in the future with the NHL coming Down Under."