The enduring power of Jaromir Jagr
PANTHERS’ AGELESS WONDER STRIVES TO BE THE BEST BY BANISHING FEAR AND CHASING EXCELLENCE
The day the Florida Panthers traded for Jaromir Jagr last year, some players told the team’s strength and conditioning coach, Tommy Powers, that his free nights were over. Powers wondered what they meant, until Jagr explained it later.
“He basically came to me and said, ‘ I need you 24-7 — can you give that?’” Powers said. “At first, I was like, uh, I kind of want to have a life.”
Jagr’s text messages and phone calls come at all hours. They are not requests so much as implied demands, but Jagr and Powers have reached an understanding in their second season together. Jagr obeys his impulses, yielding to his body’s needs, but tries to give Powers as much notice as possible.
If on a Saturday night Jagr feels like donning ankle weights and a 35- pound vest to punish himself in 30-second skating intervals, then wants to cool down by ripping one-timers from different spots on the ice, Powers will cancel his plans or bring along his girlfriend or brothers.
If Jagr anticipates wanting to tow Powers with a rope while running sprints at 10:30 p.m. in a hallway of the team’s hotel, Jagr will notify him during the afternoon.
“If I want to practice, I want to be mentally ready for it,” Jagr said. “I want to do it on my own, not because someone tells me, ‘ Oh, let’s practice at 9 o’clock in the morning.’ What if I don’t feel right at 9 o’clock in the morning? I do what I need to do when I need to do it.”
That philosophy has defined Jagr across all of his incarnations, from mulletsporting wunderkind to twotime Stanley Cup champion to the league’s most valuable player to brooding malcontent to sage veteran to his current standing as the most fascinating man in hockey.
Jagr, at 44, leads the NHL in years on Earth — by 4. He also leads the Atlantic Division champion Panthers, his eighth NHL team, in points and ranks second in goals.
Across more than 2,000 professional games in 22 NHL seasons and three more in the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia, Jagr has focused on hockey pursuits that are intertwined: chasing excellence while suppressing fear.
At age 7, in his native Czechoslovakia, Jagr started doing 1,000 squats a day. He trains while others sleep to ward off guilt, and he wards off guilt so he can play, and he plays because he loves hockey, and he loves it because it is fun.
When it stops being fun and starts being drudgery, Jagr said, he will quit.
“I’m not a guy who’s going to run some race and, before I finish, think how I’m going to celebrate,” Jagr said last month at the Panthers’ practice complex. “First, I want to finish the race, win it, then think how I’m going to celebrate. When you start thinking before it’s over, you might not win it.”
For hockey to remain fun, for it to continue sustaining him in his fifth decade, Jagr must enjoy more than just the process. A five-time NHL scoring champion, he does not have the luxury of aging as might a defenceman, who can focus on his defence to cloak a decline in offensive production.
Last week, Jagr became the oldest player to record 60 points in a season. He is invigorated by playing on a line with the superlative forwards Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau, whose combined age (42) is less than his. He humbles players half his age because many of the attributes that captivated the league a quarter-century ago — magnetic puck control, immovable net presence, funky wrist shot — have endured.
But being surrounded by all that youth — all those players who, he insisted, are better than he is — has also had a deeper effect.
Ever at tuned to his strengths and, increasingly, his limitations, Jagr is more aware now of who he is, as a player and a person. He modifies his preparation to account for evolving roles, fluctuating ice time and his own expectations.
He says he does not think about his legacy, retirement or the legends he passes on the league’s scoring lists. He says he does not think about what was or what will be. He cares about what is — about living hockey, all day, every day. And that gives him joy.
“The best way to describe Jaromir,” Panthers forward Jussi Jokinen said, “is that the way some people love their kids, that’s how he loves the game.”
To keep up with the game’s faster pace, Jagr has shaved 15 pounds from his frame. After practice he often skates alone, darting the length of the ice and back until he thinks he should stop.
“He’s a psycho,” Panthers forward Vincent Trocheck, 22, said, “in an unbelievable way.”
Strange as it seems, this will all end at some point. It does for everyone, and when it does for Jagr — be it at 45, or 55 or beyond — he will think about what comes next, but not a moment before. Asked about his post- retirement plans, Jagr cut off the question midsentence and grinned.
“The body knows a lot more than you do,” he said. “Something always puts you somewhere where you should be.”