Jaromír Jágr softened his words from Sunday’s interview about the fact that he will not return to the ice. At the same time, the 50-year-old owner of the Kladno club reiterated that he currently has no time, desire or will to train, which would help him get in such shape to jump into the Knights’ lineup.
He admitted that with the confirmation of the organization of matches in the open air, he would get a portion of extra motivation. Also thanks to the fact that there would be a fixed return date before him.
Sunday’s interview of the hockey great after the Kladno game in Mladá Boleslav, in which he admitted that he has no desire or motivation to return to the ice and admitted the possibility that he will not return to the ice, stirred up speculation about the end of the playing career of one of the best hockey players in history. Jágr admitted that he was somewhat surprised by such considerations.
“I was asked when I will return and how soon it will be. I answered that at the moment – I emphasize at the moment – I absolutely do not see it. Then the media has already made something out of it and I don’t want to comment on it. It would also be pointless,” Jágr said today to journalists after the press conference for the opening of the second year of the School of Hockey Talents in Kladno.
“I meant that at the moment I didn’t have the time, the desire or the will to train. And without training you simply cannot play. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t start again, that I won’t get the desire again. I’m not disproving anything, but a lot of articles were created from one answer , which I didn’t even want to comment on, because they seemed pointless to me,” Jágr explained.
At the same time, however, he reiterated that his eventual return is not currently on the agenda. “Maybe I won’t start again. I really don’t know. For example, today I trained for the second time in the equipment (with the team) so that we have twenty players on the ice, because we have a lot of injured players. It is senseless to drag players from the first league to our training, so I went on the ice “, Jagr recalled.
What was his impression of himself? “It was more difficult than I could have imagined. It was terrible, just surviving training is crazy for me. For various reasons – I didn’t skate for six months, I didn’t do anything, I’m overweight and I’m old… But I still went to training, because it makes much more sense for me to train with twenty people than with nineteen,” Jágr explained.
But he did not want to think about whether more frequent training sessions with the team would push him towards an early return. “Maybe at sixty it can kick me,” Jágr laughed. “Why not, there are a lot of older people who come to play hockey after work. Compared to them, I have a huge advantage that I am the owner, so I can somehow get into the lineup. They don’t have this, but they still like hockey as much as I do and after work they go to play their hobby leagues,” Jágr added.
He also explained what has changed since the summer, when he estimated that he could jump into the extra league again in November or December. At that time, he did not mention the loss of appetite and motivation. “I couldn’t train and jumping on the bandwagon is the most difficult thing. If I had trained regularly, completed summer training right after the season and trained normally with the team, it would have been different. But I couldn’t,” Jágr pointed out.
“At the moment, there were more important things for me than focusing on whether I’ll score one goal or two. That’s not so important compared to whether things will go well here (in Kladno) or not. I’m just thinking about others than on himself,” Jágr said.
The Winter Hockey Games event could change a lot, also because Jágr was one of the organizers and he himself promised to appear on the ice during the planned hockey holiday. However, the open-air matches have already been postponed twice before, and it is not yet certain whether they will take place in Prague in December according to preliminary plans.
“It’s complicated, although I believe it will work. But believing is just a nice start. There is not much time to make it happen in the winter. But if it happens, it will really be a buzz. On the other hand, I would have an extra motivation to do it to get it as soon as possible. I promised to play the Winter Classic and I would like to play it. Maybe it really would be my last match, I don’t know. I don’t guarantee or promise anything. I would have to prepare well for that match anyway, because from the volley I would he didn’t give it,” Jágr did not hide.
And the motivation to play at the renovated Kladno stadium, which he mentioned earlier? “If I wanted to return to regular matches and I wasn’t feeling well, I could easily train for another week and come back later. That’s not possible at the Winter Classic. There, I would have a clearly defined date for which I would have to prepare and obey certain things. If, on the other hand, there is no fixed deadline, the human body always finds an excuse why not until next week,” Jágr smiled.
Although he chose a lighthearted tone for a moment, why postpone his return to the ice, he is very well aware of how difficult it is to prepare for extraleague battles. And not just because of age.
“I definitely don’t think the extra league is a bad competition. And I’m sorry that people approach it that way or talk about it that way, including some experts. It’s more the opposite. I see a lot of guys who played above average in other leagues, but here they bother, they don’t stand out. Extraliga is very strong,” Jágr objected.
“If anyone thinks that when the average was somewhere in the European league and he will stand out here, then it is not at all. Our extra league is a really high-quality and tough competition,” Jágr added.
