Kings' success has always been atop Tim Leiweke's to-do list Tim Leiweke, one of the brightest deal-makers in his industry, was trying to figure out what to do with a trophy no one wanted to be around or touch. And he was stumped. Temporary custody of the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl had fallen to Leiweke, the Kings' governor and also president and chief executive of AEG. No stranger to the big stage, he regularly advises political and civic leaders, and this month met President Obama when the Major League Soccer champion Galaxy visited the White House. But when it came to what to do with a shiny piece of hardware given to the Western Conference playoff champion Kings ... I bring it home and I'm like, 'What am I doing to do with this?' Leiweke said in an interview. What if someone comes in to my car, breaks in and steals it? So I lock it up in my house. I haul it out and put it in my trunk the next morning. I'm driving around to various meetings that day and it suddenly occurs to me, it's probably not the smartest thing I've ever done, having the Campbell trophy in my trunk. At least it didn't end up in the lost-and-found bin at Staples Center or at the bottom of somebody's swimming pool. Kings President and General Manager Dean Lombardi didn't want possession, either, and so it didn't accompany the team back on its charter from Phoenix, especially because deeply superstitious hockey players will touch only the Stanley Cup. Lombardi told Leiweke to keep it. I said, 'What? Keep it in my trunk? You want me to keep the trophy in my trunk for three weeks? Leiweke said. I can't do that. Anyway, Luc [Robitaille] took it and did something with it and I don't want to know. He said, joking: "It might be in the tunnel between Staples and L.A. Live for all I know." Leiweke was talking a few days after the Kings reached the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 19 years, and the first time under the stewardship of parent company AEG, owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz. Leiweke was quick to say the Kings were far from being done this spring. The Final opens Wednesday against the New Jersey Devils in Newark at the Prudential Center, an AEG-affiliated arena. His younger brother Tod, the chief executive of the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning, told him to savor the moment and Tim shot back, telling him: "Four more games." So although it is something short of a victory lap for Leiweke, the spot in the Stanley Cup Final does represent a career-defining moment for the man who joined the Kings in 1996. At the time, it looked like nothing more than an ordinary corporate footnote on a late April day when it was announced Leiweke was leaving his position as president and chief executive of U.S. Skiing to become the Kings' president, coming off a long string of previous success with the Timberwolves in Minnesota and the Nuggets in Denver. Then came Staples Center. And L.A. Live. And a healthy live-entertainment business and arenas in nearly every part of the world. On top of it all, Leiweke lured global soccer icon David Beckham to the Galaxy and persuaded him to stay in Los Angeles in the face of months of European media reports saying it would never happen. Despite global and local triumphs, there was something missing. Success kept eluding the first child, the Kings. Even Anschutz questioned Leiweke's fierce attachment to the often-problematic franchise, which stood out in an otherwise neat and orderly corporate structure.