It’s amazing to think about, but hockey icon Jaromir Jagr — who turned 53 years old in February — is still playing competitve hockey. But in this 2012 cover story, Jagr spoke exclusively to THN about his decision to sign with the Philadelphia Flyers — the arch-enemy of his longtime Pittsburgh Penguins team:

MAN OVER MYTH

By Adam Proteau

The gap between perception and reality never seems bigger than it is when it comes to Jaromir Jagr. In his three years playing in the Russian-based Konti-nental League, some imagined he had lost a step and wouldn’t thrive again upon his return to the NHL. Others, who heard the urban legends about him and interpret his easygoing nature as a sign of weakness or lack of determination, just assumed he would never return and instead go on a world tour dating Czech supermodels. Others still thought that if and when he did return to North America, he would be fully intent on signing with Pittsburgh, where he won two Stanley Cups, and wouldn’t in a million years even dream of joining the Penguins’ hated rivals in Philadelphia.

But with his 40th birthday coming up in February and splashes of grey in his hair and facial stubble, Jagr is his own man. He doesn’t fritter away the days worrying about anyone’s perception of him. He long ago was resigned to the fact he can’t control the pictures painted by gutter Picassos. And now, as the elder statesman on a Flyers team that has been a perfect fit for him thus far, he’s intent on sucking the marrow out of every moment he has left in the NHL.

When Jagr departed for Russia in the summer of 2008, he was regarded as a depreciating asset. Over his final two years playing for the New York Rangers, his point production dropped an average of 26 points (from 123 in 2005-06 to 96 in ’06-07 to 71 in ’07-08). He finished off his Blueshirts career with an impressive five goals and 15 points in 10 playoff games, but when no contract offer was made to keep him in a Rangers jersey, he signed a two-year, $10-million deal to star for Avangard Omsk in Siberia.

That’s right – Siberia. The symbolism of him going from the most popular city on the planet to one of Earth’s most remote locations was overwhelming. But you’ll never get him to utter a discouraging word about his time there. Jaromir Jagr doesn’t do regret. “If you compare what you’re doing with your life to something else, what you’re comparing it to could be only your imagination,” Jagr said when asked whether he’d have preferred to stay in the NHL. “If you think it could be better somewhere else, you’re never going to be satisfied. But if you say, ‘it could be a lot worse if I didn’t do what I’m doing now,’ then you’re always happy. That’s what I’ve learned – whatever you’re doing, that’s the best thing you could do. It’s up to you how you’re going to control your brain.”

Although few of his NHL fans ever saw a minute of his KHL career, Jagr was in full control of his craft there as well. Omsk named him captain midway through his first season in Russia and instead of returning to the NHL last year, he re-signed for a third season. In 155 KHL games, he amassed 66 goals and 145 points. And when he represented his Czech Republic homeland at the World Championship the past two years, Jagr posted eight goals and 16 points in 18 games.

If he did miss anything, it was the smaller North American ice surface that allows him to take full advantage of his 6-foot-3, 230-pound frame and legendary ability to control and protect the puck. But the larger Russian ice surfaces were a benefit to him in another regard – one that made his readjustment to the ever-increasing pace of NHL hockey that much easier. “On the big ice, one thing that helped me was the skating,” Jagr said. “In three years there you skate a lot. It’s tough to score goals there because everything’s so far away. But I like to play on the small ice – you beat guys 1-on-1 in the corner and you have a scoring chance. Over there, when you beat guys 1-on-1 in the corner, you still don’t have a scoring chance. There’s somebody else you have to beat.”

In many respects, the only person Jagr worries about beating these days – other than the goalie, checking forwards and defensemen he faces on any given night – is Father Time. And that brings us to another flat-out falsehood about No. 68: that he’s played 18 NHL seasons and continues to excel strictly because of his supernatural abilities. In fact, the opposite is true. He takes great pains to keep himself in optimal physical condition. But because he’s Jaromir Jagr, he does it his way.

Whereas almost all NHLers are used to hitting the weight room each day after practice, Jagr operates differently. He doesn’t believe that, simply because the hockey world is accustomed to a typical training schedule, he has to abide by it if it doesn’t work for his body. So he’ll show up at the Flyers practice facility late at night to work out and/or skate. He’ll go for an 11 p.m. run the night before a game.

And when you hear him explain why he does it that way, it makes all the sense in the world. “Why I work at night is for one reason – if I go on ice in the morning and do a little bit off the ice, I cannot do a lot more because I’m already tired from the practice where I give 100 percent,” said Jagr, who also continues to use ankle weights and weight vests when he practices. “I always believe if you give 100 percent, your body only has an hour and 30, an hour and 45 maximum (at that level). So then you take a rest, wait eight or nine hours, then do it again. If I’m just gonna do it after practice just because someone told me to do it and I don’t feel fresh, it doesn’t make sense.”

Jagr’s approach to conditioning has rubbed off on the Flyers young players, including budding star James van Riemsdyk and fellow Czech Jakub Voracek, Jagr’s closest friend on the team. And it is one of the ways he’s become a leader in short order in the dressing room. Jagr won’t be making any Herb Brooks-style motivational speeches, but that’s not what he brings to the table. He has given his teammates an exceptional example of what a world-class work ethic looks like. And more importantly, he brings that famous smile of his to the office every single day to keep the room loose and positive.

You remember that smile, the one that’s as wide as the talent gulf that once existed between him and all but maybe two or three other players on the planet. He’s still got full wattage on it and you can see it on his face at a morning skate in Buffalo in early December. Indeed, his grin is by far the biggest of all the Flyers players on the ice that morning. He flips a puck into the back of unassuming Flyers defenseman Kevin Marshall, just to get a giggle out of him. He messes around with linemate and emerging superstar center Claude Giroux. Really, it doesn’t matter who he’s around for the beaming face to come out.

And while that might be in part a product of Philadelphia’s early-season success in the standings, it doesn’t go unappreciated by the men who made the decision to bring him into Philly in the first place. “His smile is infectious – in the room, on the ice, with everybody in the organization,” said Flyers coach Peter Laviolette, who believes Jagr remains one of the toughest players to knock off the puck. “I don’t know if he’s exceeded expectations or just picked up where he left off when he was in the NHL. He was a great player when he left, a great player in the Russian league and he’s been great for us since coming back. We’ve been extremely pleased with his performance. He’s come here with a terrific attitude, his work ethic has been excellent and he’s been a fantastic influence on our young players.”

Flyers GM Paul Holmgren, who signed Jagr to a one-year, $3.3-million contract on the first day of unrestricted free agency, echoed Laviolette’s praise. “Right from the first day with us in training camp, Jaromir’s preparation and professionalism have really stood out,” Holmgren said. “I can’t say enough how pleased I am. He’s been a real blessing for us.”

If he’s been a boon to the Flyers, Jagr has been a particularly strong influence on two young players. After his development stalled in Columbus, the 22-year-old Voracek is on course to set a career high in points with 55. And then there’s Giroux. The 23-year-old was just finding his NHL footing when Jagr was finishing up with the Rangers and has since blossomed like few others from his generation, going from 27 points in 42 games in 2008-09 to 47 points in his first full season of 2009-10 to 76 points last season. But this season, playing alongside Jagr and Scott Hartnell, Giroux is making those numbers look small. With 16 goals and 37 points in 27 games, the Hearst, Ont., native was on pace for a 49-goal, 112-point campaign.

With all due respect to Hartnell, Jagr’s influence clearly has given Giroux a performance boost. Jagr missed four of those first 27 games with lower-body injuries, but in the 23 games the dynamic duo did spend together, Jagr was nearly a point-per-gamer (nine goals, 22 points) and a guy delighted to have someone like himself who can see and think about the game at the most elite of levels. “His hockey sense is one of the best I’ve seen – no, make that the best I’ve seen,” Giroux said of Jagr, with whom he had chemistry on and off the ice since the first day of training camp. “That’s one of his best attributes – being able to communicate and getting everyone on the same page. Every day he’s happy to be at the rink. It’s not a job for him, it’s more about having fun with the boys.”

Jagr thinks so much of Giroux, who helped him break the 1,600-career-NHL-points plateau, he believes the youngster is already in the highest echelon of hockey’s elite. But it’s what’s inside Giroux’s ears that truly sets him apart and has made Jagr’s readjustment to NHL life that much easier. “He could be No. 1 shooter in the league eventually,” Jagr said of Giroux. “He’s gonna have a good challenge with (Sidney) Crosby, but you never know. One thing I like about him is he’s very smart. He’s 23 and he’s going to be better physically, but in the brain he’s 35. That’s why Crosby is so good. With their brain they beat their age by 15 years.”

One of the reasons Giroux and Jagr can display their offensive wizardry is the league’s crackdown on obstruction, something that wasn’t around during Jagr’s peak years as a Penguin in the mid-to-late ’90s. While he wasn’t as vocal about the NHL’s clutch-and-grab issues as former teammate Mario Lemieux, Jagr is pleased to see the steps that have been taken to give the game back to its best players.

“The league is doing a very good job listening to the fans, giving them what they like,” Jagr said. “People don’t want to see 1-0 games. Probably they don’t want to see 9-8 games either. But six, seven goals a game, I think that’s fair for the fans and the league did a great job to realize that. For a long time, the league was stuck in the same spot and when skilled players like Mario and Wayne (Gretzky) wanted to change it, the league didn’t listen. But then they started listening and the league is more popular than it’s ever been.”

One place where Jagr is not more popular than he’s ever been is Pittsburgh, where Penguins devotees saw his joining the Flyers as a treasonous move whose equivalent would be Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger signing with the Eagles. But again, the perception of the Pens’ interest in Jagr was entirely different from the reality he describes.

As Jagr sees it, he was unfairly linked to a return to the Penguins and raised the hopes of Pens fans because his heart was described as being “in Pittsburgh.” His agent, former NHLer Petr Svoboda, was the one who used that phrase, but those words never came out of Jagr’s mouth. And the notion he would accept Pittsburgh’s one-year, $2-million offer simply because of his history with the team was fatally flawed.

“Before I signed with anybody, I didn’t talk to any media,” Jagr said. “Whatever was written, I cannot control it. If someone writes my heart is in Pittsburgh, I would not go to Pittsburgh just because they wrote that. I didn’t talk with anybody and I didn’t say that. But when you go back, I was reading the newspapers and if you look at what was written one month before I even signed with Philly, I don’t think the (Penguins) coaches or GM, or the organization, wanted me to go there. They never talked about signing me at the (2011) World Championship. They were there and they saw me play. If they were really interested, they would talk to me there. So why all of a sudden are they upset one month later when I choose Philly?”

Indeed, when you look at the character assassination that routinely takes place when an elite player leaves his team for unrestricted free agent riches or in a trade (just ask former Flyers captain Mike Richards or current Flyers starting goalie Ilya Bryzgalov, both of whom were pilloried after leaving Philly and Phoenix), it becomes obvious the image of a Penguins organization truly forlorn after being spurned by Jagr was a public relations exercise in pleasing the team’s bitter fan base, not an indication of genuine interest in making the most of his services.

Although he makes it clear how many great memories he has of Pittsburgh, Jagr isn’t one to romanticize his glory days to the point of delusion and accept a role that likely wouldn’t have been as large as the one he currently enjoys in Philly. If that makes him the villain in Pittsburgh when he makes his first appearance there as a Flyer on Dec. 29 – and check out some Internet message boards to see precisely how loathed he’s become in the Steel City – he’s OK with that. He knows he’ll have the bad-guy moustache superimposed over his image by media types as he gets closer to that game, but he’s been around long enough to know how the news business works and what it says about the nature of people in general.

“It’s pretty tough to change people’s opinion about you, not just in this situation, but in general,” Jagr said. “I don’t think I did anything bad and if people see it differently, I cannot change it. But it’s your choice to like someone or not, so I don’t listen to any of that. You have to understand that people who are saying and writing that, they’re giving people what they want to hear. People want to hear bad news. That makes them happy. The media are not stupid – they know what articles people are reading the most. I don’t react to that because I know they’re only doing it to satisfy their fans and keep their jobs.”

Jagr lives in the moment as much as any hockey legend ever has. He’s never been married or had kids, but talks like someone who sees himself with a family sometime in the relative near future. He’s unsure what his post-career life will entail, although it’s safe to say you’re not going to see him follow Wayne Gretzky’s lead and decide to become an NHL coach one day.

He also confirmed plans to play at least one season in his Czech homeland before hanging up his skates for good and awaiting first-ballot induction into multiple halls of fame. But right now and for the remainder of this season, his sole goal is to bring a championship to a Pennsylvania-based NHL team and its long-suffering fans, just as he did for a different Pennsylvania-based team and their supporters two decades ago. “I’m having a lot of fun,” Jagr said. “The important thing here is the coaches and management find a way to make us enjoy the hockey and not make it just work. You work hard, but when you’re having fun, you work even harder.”

He works harder when he’s having fun? That’s not something you heard much about during most of his career. But what you hear about Jaromir Jagr isn’t often what you get when you talk to the man and those who know him. That’s why, whether or not jaded Penguins fans care to admit it, an NHL with Jagr in it – in any uniform – is an NHL that’s richer for having him.

“You can tell he cares about the game, about playing well, about the team,” said Flyers center Max Talbot. “Everything he does is to be better and I think people are realizing he just didn’t come back (to the NHL) for nothing. He came back to play good and to win.”

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