Anže Kopitar
As always, I have to shout out the Michigan boys on the roster. Sending some mitten love to the Michigan boys: Matt Greene and Alec Martinez.
Anze is the frist Slovenian to play in the NHL. A pretty big accomplishment for someone who is just 23 years old. In Kopi's five seasons with the LA Kings, he has won 11 LA King awards. These awards included two nods as the Most Popular player on the Kings and a nod as the best defensive forward. Anze holds the record for most consecutive games played by a player on the LA Kings with 330. The streak of games stopped when Anze broke his ankle in March of this year.
Kopi speaks five languages. Slovene, Serbian, German, Swedish, and English. His grandmother was an English teacher and taught Anze and his brother both to speak it. Growing up, Anze considered Sergei Fedorov to be one of his top favorite players.
Anze also does something that I rarely see players do. He goes and sits on the bench in an away arena after the game. I was there to witness it once after a game in Detroit. I find that quite interesting seeing that the arena was not completely empty (hence how I saw that he does this). Maybe it's a quirk. Maybe it's a superstition. Or maybe he just wanted to sit on a bench in a mostly empty arena. Either way, I'll be on Anze watch after the December 17th game at Joe Louis Arena.
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