Jágr ponders his and his Kladno team's hockey future

Jaromír Jágr created a stir in the hockey world this week by making a surprise appearance for Rytíři Kladno – the team he co-owns in the Czech Extraliga – in the second game of the promotion-relegation series and becoming the oldest player to score a goal or record a point in a professional hockey game.

“As Martin Ručinský says, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while,” Jágr dismissed with a sly grin when asked about his goal, the ČTK reported. He had been held goalless in 15 regular-season games.

It was Jágr’s first hockey action in more than two months. After his last regular-season game on February 10, he travelled to Pittsburgh for a highly-publicized ceremony eight days later where his number 68 was retired by the Penguins.

“I came back from Pittsburgh and worked out twice a day,” he said. “I always say that 10 to 15 minutes of a hockey game is like an hour, an hour and a half, maybe even two hours of normal training. It’s much more demanding.”

Jágr explained that he didn’t expect to play again this season but a hand injury to Jakub Klepiš put them short a forward. He then played in the next two games – without any further scoring – as Kladno swept VHK Vsetín to remain in the top Czech league.

The question on everyone’s mind now is whether we’ve seen the last of Jágr as a player, but it’s one he refuses to answer.

“I'm not thinking about my playing career, I’ll leave that to fate,” he dismissed. “And as for the managerial one, it’s starting for us now. We have a lot of players under contract, but we have to try to improve the team so we don’t get into the same problems as this year.”

It was the second straight season that Kladno finished last place and had to defend its spot in the Extraliga. Losing the series against Vsetín would have meant relegation or, according to Jágr, perhaps worse.

“What would have happened if we hadn’t won it?” he pondered. “That would have probably ended hockey in Kladno. But that didn’t happen, so we’re moving on and have to make the strongest possible team for next season.”

Jágr acknowledged his club's challenges in doing that – Kladno is a city of under 70,000 and averaged a league-low 2,653 fans per home game this season. At the other end of the spectrum is the capital city, Prague, with a population of about 20 times Kladno’s and whose team – Sparta – averaged 11,586 fans.

“It’s certainly not as fair a system as in the NHL, where you have salary caps, all the arenas are the same and every city is over two million people,” said Jágr. “It’s terribly unbalanced, but that’s the reality, so all we can do is the best we can do.”