When I learned Jaromir Jagr had passed through waivers last week and returned to his native Czech Republic—effectively ending his NHL career—I started to tap out some memories as a comment to an earlier post. As the recollections came flooding back, I decided to pull my comments and honor ‘Jags’ with a full-blown post. My timing’s a bit off, but better late than never.
Most fans, the younger ones especially, probably don’t remember Jagr as a Penguin. They likely recall the post-KHL version of the past few seasons…the hulking guy with a shock of dark, curly hair (and sometimes salt-and-pepper beard) who was tough to play against down low, kind of like a big center in basketball posting up.