By 2023, the percentage of coherence in our lives will have become humiliatingly small. Thank you that at least one thing remains unwavering: the flow of a warm river, the glow of the resort sun, and Jaromir Jagr skating.
The day before, the 51-year-old forward announced that he would participate in the new season. “I read that I first played for Kladno in the Czech championship 35 years ago. “It’s been a long time, but I still feel the excitement before the start,” Yardo wrote before the meeting with Pardubice.
Jagr’s full statement:
Jaromir Jagr, 51, made a statement ahead of the 35th season of his career
Jagr scored 766 goals in the NHL and repeated a thought approximately the same number of times, most accurately expressed in the following phrase: “I don’t know where I will play in the future. But I want to play until my legs fail me.” At first, this statement caused a smile: the further it went, the less irony remained in it.
Behind Jaromir’s desire not to leave the field, it is easier to see his still unsatisfied passion for the game: they say he loves this hockey so much that he cannot part with it. But this would be too common a diagnosis for a person as unusual as Jaromir.
Hundreds of hockey players from different parts of the world, at the end of their careers, become coaches, managers, television experts and thus continue to play their favorite game. Wayne Gretzky earns $5 million a year for watching the NHL in the company of the presenters of the TNT television channel; Given his background, it’s silly to think there wouldn’t be a decent, dust-free hockey job for Jagr.
Again and again, Jaromir puts on his shell, Velcros his shin and elbow pads, stuffs his iconic butt into his socks, puts on his bib and jersey, cleans his helmet visor, laces his skates, and wraps his cane.
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What, besides morning exercises, helps you repeat this monotonous algorithm of actions year after year, day after day? It’s probably still the same love, although for yourself and not for hockey. It is impossible to “burn out” with the game forever, because you will lose, you will often remember the past, you will grow older and you will feel weaker today than yesterday. In the end you will get bored. You will never get tired of yourself.
For the past decade it has been known that Jagr is very attentive to his own body; For example, in the Rangers he could drink tea during training or stop training at the slightest discomfort in his muscles. In Avangard, the Czech created an individual schedule and skated at night at the Omsk stadium. If Yardo didn’t want to train, then he…he didn’t train. “Why try hard when he doesn’t feel good?” the hockey player said.
To endless direct questions about when it would finally end, Jagr responded patiently. Although the interlocutors expected specific numbers and did not hear it at all. “Maybe I’ll play until I’m 48. Or maybe I’ll play until I’m 55,” No. 68 said in an interview with Match TV in 2019. “If I stay healthy and go to church, I can play as long as I want.” [лет]. It’s just a matter of training. And I never worried about this.
I saw many players who left hockey or could no longer continue their career. They received serious injuries. They were separated by weight. They became big and fat. Problems with knees, hips. I do not want it. And even if I leave hockey, I will continue training.
Hockey is a great game. But if I don’t play, being in good shape will help me in life. I don’t want to be old and sick. I enjoy life, fans come to see me. Now I play, I score goals and I’m happy. And life is amazing!”
Jaromir Jagr in Moscow at the Spartak Cup. August 2001
Photo: Vladimir Bezzubov, photo.khl.ru
If a person has been doing one thing for almost 50 years of his life, there is a great temptation to equate his business with his life. In Jagr’s case, such a trivial identity would be a mistake.
Jaromir is not the best player in the history of hockey, even if there are few, even if only a few are better, more productive and with more titles than him. However, among the stars, he is definitely the most extraordinary, the least linear, he does not fit not only into the team schedule and the standard chair, but in general into everything we know about hockey. Gretzky scored three tons of points, but how much of a history does he have? Lemieux beat cancer, but what is his story other than talent and improvement? Tretyak achieved something resembling space flight for the Soviet people, but he learned a dubious skill.
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Hockey is not humanity’s greatest invention and Jagr is, in some ways, more than hockey; At least it’s more complicated. And the game, well, what a game, for Yardo is just a tool that allows you to be happy and free, which, however, is equivalent.
In the same interview the legend was asked if he would like to lead the Czech Hockey Federation or the entire Czech Republic. Jagr refused: “Because I love my life. When you become president of hockey or a country, you lose your freedom. And I love freedom. And my whole life is freedom. I like to work. But I need freedom. I want to do what I want. Not what others tell me to do.”
