Recently, an alleged document with the logo of the World Health Organization (WHO) circulated through social networks that, in view of the increasing longevity, reclassified the age groups and said that now, officially, youth was 18 at 65, the older ones were between 66 and 79, the elderly between 80 and 99, and from one hundred onwards one was a long-lived elder. Then the information has been denied as something from some funny guy with certain computer skills. But there is some truth to it, at least in the case of ice hockey player Jaromir Jagr.
One of the great stars in NHL history. Jagr played 24 years in the North American professional league with nine different teams and later in Russia for three seasons, with Avangard Omsk. But past fifty she has not retired, far from it. She is the soul of the forward of the Rytiri Kladno of the Extraliga of the Czech Republic. And his mission is not only to score goals and try to avoid relegation (he is last and will surely have to play a playoff), but to keep his hometown club alive financially, of which he is captain and owner .
Just 20 kilometers from Prague, and between the capital and its airport, Kladno is a town of 70,000 surrounded by farmland, with a pretty medieval center, modern apartment buildings, and what remains of the old blast furnaces of the old town. Poldi factory, which in communist times gave work to half of the inhabitants. When the iron curtain fell, the company, which sponsored the hockey team and was not ready for the free market, closed its doors. Only a few of its buildings remain standing, headquarters of startups and small companies.
Jagr was born ten kilometers from the Kladno municipal stadium, with capacity for six thousand spectators who idolize him and come with banners with his name and face. His grandfather had a farm that was confiscated by the communist regime after World War II and he was jailed for refusing to voluntarily hand over his land. He died in 1968, the same year that Soviet tanks entered the country to put down the Prague Spring reforms. In his honor, Jaromir wears the number 68, as he already did in his heyday with the Pittsburgh Penguins, when he won two Stanley Cups.
The player’s father also worked in the fields, and since he was a child Jaromir’s job was to carry bales of hay to feed the cows. “That’s where I got the strength,” he explains. He was like a bull, more than if he had gone to the gym every day ”. By comparison, he always found his workouts sucky, and his routine of practicing with a 25-pound stick and weights strapped to his ankles, and hitting car tires on the ice like balls, became NHL legend.
12 years ago, with the team on the verge of bankruptcy and disbandment, the mayor appealed to Jagr to save him. When he retired for good, after his adventures in Omsk, Philadelphia and Calgary, he returned to Kladno to take over the construction company left to him by his father. And not only did he acquire the club, but he put on his jacket again with the number 68. At 51 years old and weighing 123 kilos (he admits that he likes to eat and does not intend to give it up), he lacks the mobility of yesteryear, but he still retains technique and gives the type against the teams from Prague and Brno. This season he has scored half a dozen goals in tandem with another veteran, Tomas Plekanec, about to turn 40.
Are you sure youth doesn’t extend to 65? Nobody would say it.