Athlete Bios
Hockey
Former NHL star Jagr returns to Olympic stage
Last Updated: Monday, February 8, 2010 | 3:39 PM ET
New York Times for CBC Sports
Czech Jaromir Jagr, right, won two Stanley Cups before leaving the NHL. (Alexander Nemenov/Getty Images)Jaromir Jagr, a gifted scorer from the Czech Republic and a formidable presence on the ice, is widely considered to be the best European-born player to ever play in the National Hockey League. He left the league in 2008 after playing his final three seasons for the New York Rangers, and now plays for Avangard Omsk of the Russian Continental Hockey League.
Jagr, who will turn 38 during the Olympics, finished his N.H.L. career after 17 seasons spent with three teams - the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Washington Capitals and Rangers. He left in 13th place on the career list in goals, with 646, and ninth in points, with 1,599. He is seventh in points per game, with 1.256. He won two Stanley Cup titles, in 1991 and '92 with Pittsburgh, a team led by Mario Lemieux. Jagr called Lemieux the guiding force of his career.
"Without him, I wouldn't be playing right now," Jagr said. "I learned everything from him. I'm going to still respect him until I die. Without him, without being drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins, without seeing him play, who knows where I would be?"
The Penguins, a small-market team that knew it would not be able to pay the salary Jagr would command, traded him to Washington in 2001. The Capitals signed him to the richest contract in league history, $77 million over seven years. The team, however, floundered and Jagr struggled. The Capitals traded him to the Rangers in January 2004 but had to agree to pay nearly half his salary.
Jagr's career found new life in New York after the N.H.L. lockout. He led a rejuvenated team to its first playoff berth in nine years, scoring a career-high 54 goals and 123 points, helped by new N.H.L. rules to create offense. He sustained a shoulder injury, however, in a first-round playoff sweep by the New Jersey Devils and did not recover that scoring touch, despite scoring a goal less than 30 seconds into the first game of 2006-7, minutes after he had been introduced as the new team captain.
Over the next two seasons, despite leading the Rangers to two more playoff berths, Jagr grew frustrated with the team's increasingly defensive style. He chose to leave for Russia when Rangers management would not commit to him as the team's centerpiece in the seasons ahead.
His arrival in Omsk was marred by the death of a teammate, the Rangers prospect Alexei Cherepanov, who collapsed in a game and died after playing a shift with Jagr, who was devastated by his death.
"It's not something you can describe, when a teammate dies right next to you," he said. "You try to keep moving, but your heart is not in it, not in practice, not in games."
Jagr grew up in Kladno, Czech Republic, when it was still Czechoslovakia and under Soviet control. He wore No. 68 throughout his career in homage to the Prague rebellion in 1968, also the year his grandfather died after being jailed by the Soviets. He became one of the biggest celebrities in his home country and helped bring home a gold medal from the 1998 Olympics.
Jagr, who at first struggled to learn English, eventually came to express his jovial and wise-cracking personality in a second language, his bellowing laugh often filling the locker room. But he also revealed that he thought deeply about the game and his place in it.
"If you don't produce what they expect you to produce, you're bad," he said near the end of his final Rangers season. "If you do, you're just what you are. There's no victory for that. You're always going to lose. But that's fine with me. I love it. I love every situation. I love those games when everything's on the line. I love to be on the ice. And I'm not going to change. That's what drives me."
