“It was fun," Crosby said. "It’s a great day, the whole weekend, and like I said yesterday, I think the main thing for us is that he had the best experience possible and that we showed him what it meant to us as best we could. And I think whether it was the organization or his teammates that showed up, or the fans, I think everyone did a great job of that.”
The 52-year-old hasn’t played in the NHL since 2017, but continues to play occasionally in the Extraliga, the top professional league in Czechia, for Kladno, his hometown team, which he owns and runs, so why wouldn’t he take warmups? After all, as he reminded everyone during his speech, “It’s my day.”
Jagr, who is second in NHL history with 1,921 points (766 goals, 1,155 assists) in 1,733 regular-season games, became the third player to have his numbers retired by Pittsburgh, joining his idol Mario Lemieux (66) and Michel Briere (21).
“I remember my first coach Bob Johnson always said, ‘Today is a great day for hockey,’” Jagr said. “I’m going to change it and say, ‘Today is a great day for me.’”
And it was.
Jagr was beloved here when he played the first 11 of his 24 NHL seasons with the Penguins, who selected him with the No. 5 pick in the 1990 NHL Draft. Jagr teamed with Lemieux to help Pittsburgh win the Stanley Cup in 1991 and 1992, won the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player in 1998-99 and the Art Ross Trophy for leading the League in points five times (1994-95, 1997-98, 1998-99, 1999-2000, 2000-01).
More than 30 of Jagr’s former Penguins teammates, coaches and management staff member were in attendance Sunday. Those sitting behind Jagr as he addressed the crowd included Scotty Bowman, who coached the 1992 Cup team, former general manager Craig Patrick, and former Penguins players such as Phil Bourque, Jay Caufield, Randy Hiller, Ulf Samuelsson, Kevin Stevens, Ron Francis and, of course, Lemieux.
Jagr recalled being a teenager and watching on television when Lemieux played for Canada during the 1985 IIHF World Championship in Prague and said, “I made a wish one day we would play together.”
Jagr thanked Lemieux, now a minority owner of the Penguins, along with almost all his former teammates in attendance, plus some who were unable to make it to Pittsburgh for the ceremony, such as Bryan Trottier and Rick Tocchet.
“[Lemieux] and all those guys from the ’90s, they don’t probably know about it, but they make me the way I am, not only on the ice, but off the ice also,” Jagr said. “So, they had a big effect to what I am right now. I was 18 years old, and I spent so much time with them. My parents weren’t here, so they were the guys.”
Jagr remains fourth in Penguins history with 1,079 points (439 goals, 640 assists) in 806 -regular-season games, behind Lemieux (1,723), Crosby (1,556) and Malkin (1,270). He’s also fourth in regular-season goals and assists and fourth in Stanley Cup Playoff points with 147 (65 goals, 82 assists) in 140 games.
But with the Penguins struggling financially and needing funds to re-sign other players, Jagr accepted a trade to the Washington Capitals following the 2000-01 season. After three seasons with Washington, Jagr also played for the New York Rangers (four seasons), Philadelphia Flyers (one), Dallas Stars (one), Boston Bruins (one), New Jersey (two), Florida Panthers (three seasons) and Calgary Flames (one) before returning to the Czech Republic to play in 2018.
Each time, he returned to Pittsburgh as a visiting player, he would be booed.
There was a near-reunion with Pittsburgh in 2011 when Jagr returned to the NHL after playing three seasons for Omsk in the Kontinental Hockey League. But Jagr saw a loaded Penguins team two years removed from winning the Stanley Cup in 2009, thinking there would be no room for him on their top two lines, and chose to sign with Flyers instead.
So, the booing continued whenever he played in Pittsburgh, which gave him some initial trepidation about having his number retired. He even joked to the media before the ceremony, “I heard a lot of boos lately.”
He had no need to worry, though. The lone boo Jagr received Sunday came after he mentioned the trade. He laughed.
“The fans of Pittsburgh, the people of Pittsburgh, from the first day until my last day when I got traded,” Jagr said. “ … You guys made it a lot more easy for me. It was probably the best years of my life, so thank you for that.”
Jagr’s number retirement was the culmination of four days of celebrating after he arrived from the Czech Republic with his mother Anna Jagrova and girlfriend Dominika Branisova. It began with a ceremony at City Hall on Friday, where Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, and Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato declared Sunday to be Jaromir Jagr Day in Pittsburgh and all of Allegheny County.
On Friday evening, Jagr participated in an “Evening with Jaromir Jagr,” a fireside chat with Bourque, Caufield and Stevens. Then, Jagr skated alongside the rest of the current Penguins at the start of their practice in front of bleachers packed with fans at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex on Saturday.
“It was cool to be a part of something like that with a guy who is extremely special," Penguins forward Bryan Rust said. "Jagr meant so much to not only this team and this organization, but to the city as a whole. You saw the fans’ love for him and everybody’s love for him and I think it was cool and really special for us to be a part of that."
