Humility Personified - Anze Kopitar's Milestone Night

“What are YOU doing here?” he asked, as I walked up to him at the tee box.

It was September of 2011 and after three years on the Kings Ice Crew it was my first season covering the team for LAKings.com. Attending the Kings’ annual charity golf event was one of my first assignments, and I needed some content from Anze Kopitar.

He looked at me quizzically as I understandably seemed out of place. Not to mention I was without the typical black spandex uniform he had grown accustomed to seeing me shoveling ice shavings in over the last three years. I explained my new role and he expressed his approval. He let me snap this photo of him, which, for the life of me, I can’t remember if we actually used for the piece I was working on. Check out this baby face!

He then complimented the shoes I was wearing. They were sparkly silver Converse knock-offs, which, funny enough, were the same pair of shoes that a few years later Alec Martinez told me my dog would be well-advised to eat. Yes, you read that right. I got what I needed from Kopi at the golf tournament and proceeded on my way. On my way back to my golf cart I happened to notice his golf bag. I snapped this photo for my own collection.

All these years later that sequence of events is what comes to mind as I’m being asked to share my personal experience with Anze Kopitar over the last 16 years. Holy old people, Batman…16 years! The look of cringe on my face as I type this!

Kopi is a Super Star. Yes, I meant to capitalize those letters. He’s the first Slovenian-born player ever to play in the NHL, a future Hall-Of-Famer, drafted 11th overall in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft, and at the time of that golf tournament, on the literal verge of winning his first of two Stanley Cups…so far.

Even his golf bag had status.

But he is also a human being. Humble, down to earth, conscientious, considerate, and not above having an Average Joe conversation with someone who had, for the entirety of the time that he had known them, been paid to shovel the snow in front of his bench. This is humility at its finest.

Anze has since broken almost every Kings record possible, won numerous awards along with those two Cup Championships, and I suppose in the name of good journalism I’ll list some of them here:

• He is now the Kings franchise leader in regular season games played (he surpassed Dustin Brown’s then-record of 1,296 games on October 21).
• He is now the Kings franchise leader in assists (he surpassed Hall of Famer Marcel Dionne’s then-record of 757 assists on December 3).
• He is now second on the Kings franchise list in points (trailing only Dionne, Kopitar surpassed Luc Robitaille’s 1,154 points with the Kings on November 9).
• He scored the 400th career goal of his career on November 8 at Vegas.
• He won the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the NHL’s best defensive forward in 2016 and again in 2018.
• He won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy as the League’s most gentlemanly player in 2016 and again in 2023.
• He won two Stanley Cup Championships with the Kings, in 2012 and 2014.

Because of all this, January 24, 2024 will be Anze Kopitar Milestone Night at the Kings game. There will be numerous activations, including a pre-game ceremony, in honor of this well-deserving man, and Anze will be where he always is: on the bench, in his gear, with his head in the game. Someone more research-savvy than I, please let me know when the last time was that there was this kind of celebration in honor of someone who hadn’t even retired yet!

If I’m talking about personal experiences, there may not be a better one than right before the victory rally following the 2014 Cup win. I wrote about this in tribute to Dustin Brown last year, and make no mistake, if I’m ever asked to commemorate Jeff Carter or Justin Williams you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be writing about it again! The photo below IS the story. The day of the parade and rally I was running around in the locker room hallway, helping the Kings gather interviews for all the Stanley Cup videos that would eventually surface, and I happened to find myself right behind the player lineup just before they were announced to the fans. I feel like this moment really doesn’t need much explanation. The big guns were all right there - Kopi, Brownie, Stick, Carts…along with Clarence Campbell, Conn Smyth and Lord Stanley himself. They were all just hanging out, chatting, waiting to be called onto stage, and for obvious reasons, being a fly on the wall (with a camera) in that moment was one of the most special experiences of my career.

Anze and Ines’ daughter, Neza, is a member of the LA Synchro program, and I am the skating school supervisor at Toyota Sports Performance Center, so I also get to see Anze as a parent.

One day last May, we had our biggest competition of the year and Neza competed in multiple event categories. Like any good figure skating parent, Anze was present for most of the day, to watch and support his daughter. He sat in the bar and enjoyed a meal, just like anyone else would. On another day, when Neza had her birthday party at TSPC, Anze brought a smattering of leftover cupcakes to Guest Services to share with the staff.

I admit, after writing those things out, they seem pretty small. But I am one of those people who believes it’s the little things that make the big things at the end of the day. I also think that what makes Anze Kopitar so special is that all of these things I just wrote out are about the same person. To me, Anze Kopitar is a two-time Stanley Cup Champion, a two-time Lady Byng Trophy winner, a Selke Trophy winner who will go down in a multitude of history books, and the accolades go on. But to me he is also Kopi - a colleague I can chat with, who likes my shoes, and a rink parent who’s excited to see his daughter win a medal.

Work-wise, Anze is the consummate professional. He has always entertained my content needs, never says “no” and always shows up for media time when he’s asked to, whether it was after practice in November or after a playoff loss in May. This is humility…personified.

When I was 11-years-old, it was a dream of mine to one day write for the Kings. I never imagined I’d get to know and cover one of the greatest Kings of all time, but let’s be clear. Having the honor of front-row seat viewing for the majority of Anze Kopitar’s career is worth more than all the sparkly shoes in the world.