Jagr's legacy honored where it's always belonged, in his 'second home'

When Jaromir Jagr was growing up and playing hockey in Kladno, Czechoslovakia, he wasn't thinking too far ahead.

He wasn't thinking about winning two Stanley Cups, five Art Ross Trophies as the league's scoring leader, three Ted Lindsay Awards as the league's best player, a Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's most valuable player, or the Bill Masterton Trophy to recognize his dedication to hockey. He wasn't worried about the Olympic and World Championship medals.

And he certainly wasn't picturing an NHL team one day raising his number into the rafters of their arena, like the Penguins did with No. 68 Sunday at PPG Paints Arena before their game against the Kings.

"I never really played for anything but love," Jagr told me Sunday before his jersey retirement ceremony with the Penguins. "Since I was a small kid, I never really paid attention to what I could do, what I could accomplish, what I could win. It was never on my mind. To retire the jersey, that was never  in my mind. I always played for love, and I always loved the game."

Jagr always had love for Pittsburgh, too, even when his relationship with the fanbase and team got rocky on multiple occasions, from his 2001 trade to the Capitals to his return to the NHL with the Flyers in 2011.

Asked if he considers the Penguins his NHL home, Jagr said, "I do and I always did, there's no question about it. And when you ask anybody in the world, in Czech or in Europe, and when you say 'Jaromir Jagr' they're gonna say 'Pittsburgh Penguins.' It doesn't matter where I played after that."

Jagr is one of the greatest hockey players of all-time and undoubtedly one of the four greatest Penguins in franchise history. His No. 68 has long deserved to be retired by the team, and it's now where it belongs -- next to Mario Lemieux's No. 66 and the late Michel Briere's No. 21, never to be worn by another Penguin again.

PENGUINS

Jaromir Jagr's banner raised to the PPG Paints Arena rafters on Sunday

Jagr borrowed from his first head coach, the late Bob Johnson, to describe what the day meant to him, while making sure to mix in some classic Jagr humor.

"It's a great day for hockey," Jagr said. "I'm going to change it a little bit. It's a great day for me."

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It wasn't accidental that Jagr, widely considered to be the best player available in the 1990 NHL draft, fell to the Penguins with the fifth overall pick.

Jagr was the mastermind that made it happen.

Jagr was 13 years old when he saw Lemieux play at the 1985 World Championship in Prague. It was Lemieux's first and only time playing in a World Championship tournament, and he finished the tournament with four goals and six assists in nine games. Canada took home silver, falling to Czechoslovakia in the gold medal game.

From then on, Jagr was hooked. He would watch Lemieux on television, screaming "MARIO!" from his living room, much to the confusion of his mother, Anna. 

"My mom complained that it almost made her deaf," Jagr wrote in his 1997 autobiography. "My mom was completely beside herself and asked me if I'd lost my mind. ‘Why are you so hung up on that Mario? You don't even know a single person named Mario!’ she exclaimed."

Jagr started vandalizing his school desks, writing Lemieux's name on them. He started carrying a picture of Lemieux in his wallet, a picture he secretly kept still tucked in there even after the two became teammates.

"I made a wish," Jagr said in his speech on Sunday of that time in his life. "I wished one day we would play together."

Leading up to the 1990 draft, one scout told The Hockey News that Jagr is "a top-notch international player. He's a very big guy who skates extremely well, is a good puckhandler and plays well in traffic. He's not real flashy. He doesn't attract you with his finesse so much as his overall performance in all areas of the game. He's an impact player in their Elite League and is a member of the national team."

What made teams wary of picking Jagr, though, was that he was playing in the Czech league and it wasn't clear when he'd make the move to North America. Teams didn't want to use a top pick on a prospect that might be a few years away from being able to contribute.

Jagr being in Vancouver for the draft gave teams hope that he would be willing to make the move to North America quickly, but Jagr tempered expectations in his pre-draft interviews. He told the first four teams in the draft -- the Nordiques, Canucks, Red Wings, and Flyers -- that he wouldn't be coming to the NHL right away. When then-Penguins general manager Craig Patrick asked the same question, he got a different answer. Patrick recalled in a 2017 alumni golf outing that Jagr told him, "I'll be there tomorrow if you draft me."

Asked why Jagr did that, Patrick said, "He idolized Mario."

The dominoes cascaded in a line, and the Nordiques, Canucks, Red Wings and Flyers were all appropriately put off enough to skip over Jagr in the draft. He fell right to the Penguins at No. 5, allowing him to realize his wish of becoming teammates with the player he idolized for years.

The first time the two met in person was at a party shortly after Jagr was drafted:

COURTESY OF JAROMIR JAGR

Jagr wrote of that moment in his autobiography, saying that Lemieux told him “If you need anything, you can always come to me. I was in the exact same situation as you are now when I came to Pittsburgh speaking only French, and I still remember how hard it was."

Lemieux and Jagr haven't seen each other too often in recent years. Before this week, the last time they were together was in 2017 for the NHL's centennial celebration, when the league honored the top 100 players in its history. Lemieux said publicly then that Jagr's No. 68 deserved to be retired by the Penguins, and he played a role in the ceremony coming together the way it did. From back in Quebec, Lemieux was on the phone with those on the ground in Pittsburgh often leading up to the jersey retirement, even having a hand in the design of Jagr's banner.

A large number of former teammates and executives joined Jagr for dinner on Saturday night. Jagr and Lemieux sat together, and had what Jagr called "a pretty good talk."

The pair had another good talk just before the ceremony, with Lemieux offering some advice for his friend, who was admittedly “nervous as f—“ for his speech.

Like Lemieux told Jagr in that first meeting so many years ago — Jagr can always come to him when he needs it. Lemieux’s been there before.

Lemieux and Jagr were already going to be forever linked in Penguins history for their years together during the Penguins' first two Stanley Cups and beyond. Jagr did what he needed to do to get to Lemieux after that 1985 World Championship, and now they'll be next to each other forever.

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There were times that Jagr wasn't the most popular figure in Pittsburgh, to say the least. From the "dying alive" comment to the trade to the Capitals to his time with the Flyers, he's been booed a fair amount by his former fans. 

"It's understandable," Jagr reflected after a chuckle. "I was playing for a different team."

Still, it took quite some time for the relationship between the fans and Jagr to heal. Not only for the fans to forgive Jagr -- but for Jagr to realize and understand that he isn't hated in Pittsburgh, and that the fans would welcome a night like this honoring him.

Credit Penguins president of business operations Kevin Acklin for making that happen. Phil Bourque connected the two, and Acklin -- who remembers being a newspaper delivery boy in Pittsburgh on the day Jagr got drafted -- made it a passion project to make this night a reality. And a big part of that was making it known to Jagr how the fans really feel now.

"I think he still felt like that might have been the case (that he was disliked by fans)," Acklin told me back in September. "But it's not. Certainly, we like to boo people when they leave. That's just what we do, because we'd rather they play for us. The fanbase loves Jaromir Jagr, they understand his role in this organization. The ownership team, the players, Mario, others, there's no hard feelings. That's water under the bridge."

Jagr acknowledged both of his decisions that drew ire from the fans this week. He explained his 2001 trade request as saying he believed it was best for the team for financial reasons. He admitted that his 2011 decision to sign with the Flyers was perhaps "selfish." He wanted to play and be a contributor, and Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin's lines at the time both seemed set. Had he signed with the Penguins, he felt like he would have been in a third- or fourth-line role, whereas the Flyers presented the opportunity for a larger role.

"I was thinking about myself," Jagr said. "Because I still love the game and wanted to prove that I'm still a good player. Maybe it was a mistake, I don't know. Maybe if I came here, the (jersey retirement) celebration would be bigger."

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It's hard to imagine the celebration for Jagr being much bigger. The Penguins did this right.

Former play-by-play announcer Paul Steigerwald served as emcee, except for when Jagr was introduced to the crowd. For that, the Penguins used a recording of former Civic Arena public address announcer, John Barbero.

The video tribute was broken up into three segments, starting with Jagr's early years in Pittsburgh:

Then there was one on the cultural phenomenon that was Jagr -- from the Kit Kats, to the denim on denim, to the hair:

And finally, one on Jagr's legacy:

On the ice were all the awards -- the Hart Memorial Trophy, Art Ross Trophy, Ted Lindsay Award and Bill Masterton Trophy. There were nearly 40 guests of honor, including Jagr's 78-year-old mother Anna and his 29-year-old girlfriend Dominika. During his speech he quipped that the latter is too young to remember his time in Pittsburgh, but he made sure to tell her the stories.

There was Martin Briere, the son of the late Michel, whose No. 21 was retired by the Penguins after his death in 1971. Acklin was there after all his hard work, joined by Fenway Sports Group chairman Tom Werner. 

But the largest contingent came from Jagr's former teammates and executives. Eddie Johnston, Scotty Bowman, Rick Kehoe Greg Malone and Patrick were among the guests of honor, with Patrick visibly emotional during the ceremony. The former teammates included Lemieux, Bourque, Ron Francis, Ulf Samuelsson, Matthew Barnaby, Tyler Wright, Jiri Slegr, Ken Wregget, Jiri Hrdina, Kevin Stevens, Jay Caufield, Jean-Sebastien Aubin, Robert Lang, Francois Leroux, Jock Callander, Randy Gilhen, Grant Jennings, Troy Loney, Joey Mullen, Mike Needham, Gordie Roberts, Kjell Samuelsson, Paul Stanton, Peter Taglianetti and Randy Hillier.

Jagr spoke about the impact of many of those players during his speech, at times turning it into a roast session -- He said that Ulf Samuelsson asked him yesterday to say something nice about him in his speech, but he couldn't think of anything to say,

Jagr also mentioned a number of those who couldn't make it to Pittsburgh for the game -- Paul Coffey, Bryan Trottier, Tom Barrasso, Larry Murphy, Rick Tocchet, Marty Straka, Mark Recchi, Frank Pietrangelo, as well as Mike Lange, who he said he still thinks of as "the voice of the Penguins."

Jagr thanked his parents toward the end of his speech, mentioning that his father Jaromir Sr. died just over a year ago in Nov. 2022. His mother burst into tears, and Jagr stopped his speech to hug and comfort her.

When Jagr, his mother and girlfriend walked to the end of the rink to watch the banner rise into the rafters, Lemieux took a moment to hug Anna, too.

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The best part of the evening might have been what happened after the banner was raised.

Penguins and Kings players returned to the locker rooms after watching the ceremony from their respective benches, and the Zambonis came out to cut the ice for warmups. And for the first time ever, someone came out after Malkin in the tunnel -- Jagr himself. 

Penguins players all wore No. 68 Jagr jerseys with C's and Jagr patches. Most wore long, black mullet wigs, with some opting to go no-helmet in warmups to properly show off the flow. Jagr stayed on the ice for the full warmups, and the team posed for a photo together at the end. Jagr then took a solo lap around the ice, raising an arm to recognize the crowd.

It was the last time anyone will wear the No. 68 for the Penguins on this ice, so it was only fitting that Jagr was out there too to give one last salute, thanking the fans for the support.

"It was probably the best years of my life," Jagr said during his speech of his time as a Penguin. "I want to thank you for that. I'm proud to say the Pittsburgh Penguins are my second home."