Kamloops, B.C. — He loves L.A. but everyone wants to know if Jared Aulin is seeing Paris in the springtime.
Aulin, a centre with the Los Angeles Kings who's been out of lineup since September with a shoulder injury, lives in what he calls "a nice little apartment" on Manhattan Beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
"There is a lot of whale activity and stuff now — and dolphins," says Aulin, 21, former captain of the Kamloops Blazers. "It's kind of neat seeing that."
You can bet that it's a lot neater seeing that than seeing yourself in the tabloids.
"I never thought I'd be in a tabloid," Aulin says with a sardonic chuckle.
Ah, yes, the Paris Hilton rumours.
"That's what they are — just rumours," Aulin says of speculation that he and Hilton, the 23-year-old hotel-chain heiress, party girl and co-star of TV's The Simple Life, have hooked up. "I don't live in Hollywood. I did meet her. And I've hung out with her."
But, he says, they haven't dated, they aren't dating and he doesn't have any plans to date her.
"It just goes to show you how you can't believe everything you read, especially in Hollywood," he says.
Aulin found out that he had made Star Magazine from a teammate's wife.
"Right when I heard, I went to a grocery store and I looked through it — ohhh, she wasn't kidding."
No, she wasn't. There, under the headline Paris's New Boyfriend Scores, were photos of Aulin, in a Kings uniform, and Hilton.
Aulin says he has been at Hollywood-type events, including a few red carpet affairs, and attended one as part of a group that included Hilton.
"She came — not as my date, but as a friend of these girls I knew — to a party with us," he says. "I invited all of them and that's when the rumour started."
Later, he says, Hilton called him and an invitation to the premiere party for The Simple Life followed.
"She phoned me. We hung out a little," he says. "She is good friends with some friends of mine."
Aulin says it's tough to be doing the all-night social scene with Paris Hilton or anyone else when you consider his schedule. When the Kings are at home, he is at the rink for "therapy every morning at 7."
"No days off," he says. "I work out and do the biking and stuff. When the team is on the road I get to sleep in for an hour and get to the rink at 8 o'clock."
