Jags, like his hair, is an NHL legend
You know that old gym bag or suitcase that still does its job that you can’t seem to throw away? That’s Jaromir Jagr. It’s part way through the off-season and Jags is packing his suitcase again after joining his fourth team since rejoining the NHL in 2011.
Moving around this late in his career makes it seem like he is trying to win another cup before he goes, though signing with the Stars and now a Kovalchuk-less Devils wouldn’t make sense if that were the case. I think he is just trying to find any team to take him. This again seems weird, since it’s not as if he’s signing for pennies on the dollar (Philly Contract was worth $3.3 million, Dallas shelled out $4.5 million for him and now he has reportedly signed for over $4 million with the Devils).
He’s certainly lost a step, there’s no denying that. But he still boasts a 240-pound concrete frame that is basically immovable (unless you count this – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IQYyl5G5MU ), a great shot, and natural puck and vision skills paralleled by few around the league – regardless of age. So why wouldn’t teams give him a one-year deal, something he doesn’t seem to mind signing, unlike a lot of players.
Take him or leave him, here are five reasons why you’ve gotta love this guy despite the fact that he has – or probably will – play for the team you hate the most at some point before he retires. I’ve gone ahead and left out outrageous hair, since that one is just a given.
1. He’s absolutely disgusting
Okay, so that’s a given. But just take a moment and think about how great this guy could have been had he not fled the NHL in 2008.
Let’s say conservatively he would have had about 65 points per year from 2008-11. And that’s a low estimate, since he averaged almost 97 points in the previous three seasons between 2006 and 2008. (Caveat: even though his totals dropped from 123 to 96 to 71 in those three years, Jagr has the ability to appear as if he is fading and then just turn it on. He hadn’t scored more than 100 points before 2005-06 since 2000-01 and appeared to be on the back end of his career. Then he started trying (or something?) again in NYC and was challenging Joe Thornton for the Art Ross). So I don’t necessarily think he would only get 65 points in the NHL during his KHL years, but you have to be conservative in hypotheticals.
So if you’ve done the math by now, that would put him up around the 1900 point range right now with well over 700 tucks… I’d say this guy has a couple more years in him if he wants, meaning he might have been able to pass 2000 career points. (Just in case you don’t know a thing about hockey’s beautiful history, this would put him second all-time behind Gretzky… not too shabby at all)
Now I’m not saying that he’s the second best offensive player of all-time, just highlighting the fact that this guy rarely gets talked about in the all-time greats list despite his incredible stats. People admit that he’s great, but I don’t think they appreciate just how great he is.
2. He is a pioneer of the outrageous celebration
I remember when Jags first started doing the salute. Back then, it was weird and everyone would wonder what the hell the Czech guy was doing. Now, in an era where guys do all kinds of showboating and weird shit like this ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfysDNnuX64 ), the salute seems pretty calm.
Now that I reflect, I have come to enjoy the salute and really don’t think it’s that bad at all. As Giroux put it in HBO 24/7, the salute is more like the signature move of a hockey legend.
Just for kicks, here are a couple of great salutes. My personal fave is the one where he rolls right through Pittsburgh’s crease as if to say that he’s still got it after he scored 2 goals in 20 seconds.
3. His stand-out playoff facial hair
This is pretty self-explanatory.
Check out these photos of Jags in the playoffs pulling off facial hair styles that would have most of us just plain laughed out of the room. He kind of looks like the Wolverine with this dyed-black beard he sported in Boston. Who knows why he does it? What we do know is that it shows some character and is absolutely hilarious.
Jaromir has become the poster boy for wacky facial hair in the Playoffs
4. He doesn’t take himself too seriously
One of the things I hate about athletes is their uncanny ability to tell you nothing in an interview. We get it; you don’t wanna end up like Tyler Seguin spewing out homophobic tweets twice in the same calendar year, but say something beyond the usual clichés. I think athletes in general (mostly NHLers) think that it is cool (and that people will like them) if they speak like they were educated in a barn and tell us nothing. But what they don’t get is that the only players who can pull off the robot-talk are the ones who are so unbelievably good (see: Sidney Crosby) that you can’t dislike them no matter what. The best guys are the ones that show that they are human every once in a while and play along with media trickery… this is also known as having a personality. Anyway, enough of this rant, here are a couple of great clips that show Jagr isn’t a robot, despite the fact that he sometimes looks a bit confused by the questioning.
5. He is a consummate pro
It certainly takes a lot of dedication to play professional hockey at a high-level into your forties. I do think that the Iron-Man-Dedication-type award should go to Temmu (who is apparently a fitness fanatic and is often referred to the best athlete in the world for his age), Jagr deserves a close second place nod here. The guy is in excellent shape and apparently works out after every game to keep his body loose and injury-free. He misses some time, naturally, but I think there are few guys in the NHL who take the off-ice aspects of the game as seriously as he does.
In addition to this, he seems like he just has it all figured out at this point. In the video below (made before he joined the stars) he says “for me to score goals is not the number one thing in my head… it’s to win hockey games,” you know anyone who says something like that after winning virtually everything in his NHL career (and therefore has nothing left to do except pad his stats), is a great guy to have on your team to mentor the young guys.
So there you have it. Five reasons you should love and appreciate Jagr and try to enjoy the remainder of a truly great career! Do yourself and go to Youtube and check out some of his highlight compilations… There are just too many to embed on here.
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