Kopitar on All-Star selection

By Matthew Kredell on January 10, 2008 8:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) |

``Last night, Dean Lombardi called me and told me the news. I was having dinner and the phone call was a pleasant surprise for sure. Once I got the call, the first person I wanted to tell was my dad and I wanted to do that right away. Obviously, he too was very excited. I'm sure that when the news hits over in Slovenia, it will be covered very well.

``This experience will be a lot of fun. Last year, I saw a glimpse of it while playing in the Young Guns game, which in itself was pretty exciting. But this will be even better.''

Kings up 5-1 at the end of two. LaBarbera made some nice saves as the Kings killed 5-on-3 near the end of the period.

2 Comments

Paul said:

Kopitar refers to the young guns game, which gives me a perfect platform to post my recommendation....

I called into The Point on NHL on XM yesterday with EJ Hradek and suggested that when the young stars play, they should pick a player of the game from each conference. Those 2 players then get "promoted" to play in the next day's NHL all star game.

It would give the kids extra incentive to play well, and it would be fun for the fans.

January 10, 2008 9:18 PM

Eric K said:

"I'm sure that when the news hits over in Slovenia, it will be covered very well." yep, better than the coverage it will get here. the average LA person probably still thinks of wayne gretzky when the kings come up in conversation... hopefully anze does something to change that.

and paul, that's actually a really good idea.

January 10, 2008 10:59 PM

J.P. Hoornstra writes about NHL and IHL hockey for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. He welcomes any and all dialogue on the finer points of hockey. E-mail J.P. at jp.hoornstra
@inlandnewspapers.com.

Jill Painter joined the Daily News in 2000 and during the last eight years she's covered the Dodgers, Cal State Northridge, UCLA, Kings, golf and everything in between. Even though she's from Colorado, she still freezes in the Staples Center press box but always manages to thaw her fingers in time to make deadline. E-mail Jill at jill.painter@dailynews
.com.