LOS ANGELES (AP) — When Clayton Kershaw and Anze Kopitar announced their impending retirements two hours apart on Thursday, the Los Angeles sports world changed forever in an afternoon.
The timing was pure coincidence for the Dodgers' enduring ace and the Kings' longtime captain, and their decisions were relatively unsurprising.
These two 21st-century LA icons still created one epochal sports day for their adopted town.
“I guess it’s kind of funny how everything works out like that,” Kopitar said. “It
must have been something in the universe for us to decide to do it together this day.”
After spending the better part of two decades as the heart and soul of their respective teams, Kershaw and Kopitar will step out of the Hollywood lights over the next year — Kershaw in a few weeks after the defending World Series champion Dodgers' playoff run, and Kopitar in 2026 after the Kings' upcoming NHL season.
The near-simultaneous announcements were even more poignant because these two superstars are friends who built parallel careers. Kopitar arrived from Slovenia in 2006, while Kershaw landed from Texas in 2008. Both have shined ever since in the City of Stars, steadily beaming across a crowded sports landscape.
They've also brought home two rings apiece, with dreams of winning a third before they hang up their cleats and/or skates.
“I can’t think of a better season to go out,” Kershaw said. “We still have a lot to accomplish this month, and the last thing I want to do is be a distraction to anybody from accomplishing our ultimate goal: to win in the last game of the season.”
But first, the 37-year-old Kershaw and the 38-year-old Kopitar wanted to get their respective decisions out into the world to minimize the distraction to their teams — and they accidentally ended up doing it nearly at the same time.
The Kings announced Wednesday that they would hold a news conference Thursday. The team didn't disclose the reason, but savvy fans and reporters could read between the lines.
About three hours before the scheduled start of Kopitar's event, the Dodgers announced Kershaw's decision on social media, calling their own news conference for later in the afternoon. Kershaw said his wife, Ellen, had encouraged him to make the announcement a day before he pitched in his final regular-season home game Friday.
Baseball is bigger than hockey in Los Angeles, and Kershaw has accumulated even more individual honors and fame than the wildly accomplished Kopitar.
So Kershaw's announcement inevitably took some shine away from Kopitar's moment — but Kopitar didn't mind in the slightest.
“It was actually perfect for me,” Kopitar said. “Now I can fly under the radar. Obviously he's a world-class ballplayer, and he deserves all the recognition he's getting and will get.”
Kopitar and Kershaw have known each other for nearly their entire careers, with each supporting the other at their teams' home games over the years. They even shared the cover of Sports Illustrated in October 2014, with Kershaw’s arm leaning on the seated Kopitar’s shoulder while they smiled to the camera.
Their parallel careers have some remarkable similarities, too.
Both were first-round draft picks in the mid-2000s who arrived with significant expectations, although the Kings took a bigger risk on a relatively unknown prospect from a country that had never produced an NHL player than the Dodgers took on Kershaw, a dominant Dallas-area high schooler.
Both youngsters quickly demonstrated they were capable of handling major league competition and a big-city spotlight, making themselves vital to their teams shortly after reaching Los Angeles. Kopitar was the Kings' leading scorer by 2008, and Kershaw was a 20-game winner by 2011.
And both had to wait several years for any major playoff success — although Kershaw waited a whole lot longer than Kopitar, whose eighth-seeded Kings shocked hockey when they rampaged through the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs to the Second Six franchise's first title.
That ring arrived in Kopitar's sixth NHL season, and he added another two years later. Kershaw's playoff history was grim for many years — in fact, it almost came to define his career as much as his regular-season dominance.
But Kershaw pitched that narrative into irrelevance for all but the most contrarian fans when he was a steady contributor to the Dodgers' 2020 title run, finally winning it all in his pandemic-truncated 13th MLB season.
Kershaw and Kopitar are both choosing to go out near the top of their careers, while they're still contributing at a level that belies their age and mileage.
Kershaw is 10-2 this season with a 3.53 ERA and 71 strikeouts, including the 3,000th of his career. He hasn't lost since July, and he won all five of his starts while allowing just six runs over 28 2/3 innings in a dominant August, doing more than his share to keep the faltering Dodgers and their leaky bullpen in the playoff race.
Kopitar had 21 goals and 46 assists last season as the Kings' second-leading scorer while still providing the two-way play that won him two Selke Trophies. He needs only 30 points this season to pass Marcel Dionne to become the top scorer in history for the Kings, who appear to have the roster to improve on four consecutive first-round playoff exits.
Finally, Kershaw and Kopitar both said they were putting family first by retiring to spend more time with their growing children.
Kopitar and his wife, Ines, intend to return to Slovenia, where their nearly-teenage son and daughter are active in hockey and figure skating. Clayton and Ellen Kershaw have four busy kids — and a fifth on the way.
While Kershaw shed more tears than Kopitar during their announcements, both reflected poignantly on the waning days of two remarkable careers while looking to the remaining future with optimism.
“I’m at peace with it,” Kershaw said. “I think it’s the right time.”
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