I have discussed previously sports and tefilla and think that this article raises some new angles the drive and purpose needed to preform at a top level, be it in sports or in your service of Hashem.
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Jagr sticks with his faith
BY FRANK SERAVALLI
Daily News Staff Writer
INSIDE JAROMIR Jagr's locker stall, in the bowels of the
Wells Fargo Center and any arena where the Flyers play, a small memento is
wrapped in blue felt. It is a trifold, no more than 6 inches in length. It sits
next to Jagr's hockey tape, stick wax, and various weights and braces and
training contraptions. It does not stand out, except for the shine reflecting off
the gilded hand-painted faces of the Eastern Orthodox Church's Holy Trinity,
and the fact that religious icons in hockey dressing rooms are rarer than
Stanley Cup-clinching goals.
Jagr, 40, rarely leaves home without his religious relics.
He keeps one with him at most times, in his pocket or in his wallet. Jagr has a
cross drawn on each of his game sticks, just under where his cocked hands
perform nightly miracles of a different kind on the ice.
Hearing his Flyers teammates talk about his
"religious" work ethic, you would hardly know Jagr is a man who visits
church on mostly every game day, even on the road. He doesn't much talk about
his faith. It's a subject even close friend and fellow Czech Republic native
Jake Voracek has yet to broach with his boyhood idol.
To understand Jagr as a hockey icon, though, is to
understand him as a person. For Jagr, religion is everything. He firmly
believes his faith has everything to do with the reason he has not only made a
Hall of Fame living in the NHL but also why he is still going strong at his
advanced age. It helps explain his renaissance in Philadelphia after a 3-year
absence from North America and why he is the go-to leader on a team full of
kids.
"People might think I am crazy," Jagr said in a
wide-ranging interview last week. "Everything in life is energy. [Albert]
Einstein said it best: Energy will disappear if you transfer it to other
things. If I go to church, my head is burning. It's on fire. I feel like my
head is hooked up to electric steam. I feel it in my head right away, as soon
as I walk in.
"It is a long process; you've got to do it 10 years, 20
years; it doesn't happen overnight. You've got to listen to your body. But you
can harness that energy in your life. I don't think I'm getting old that
quickly. You've got all the energy coming in your life if you ask for it. Only
because of this, it's the reason I think I can still play until I'm 50."
Jagr is the Flyers' resident philosopher. He thinks the game
differently and more intensely than anyone else. Jagr is obedient, but he is a
free thinker. He brings his own ideas to the table, something coach Peter
Laviolette says he enjoys.
Jagr's most strikingly different - and well-documented -
trait is his unique workout regimen. He likes to train when most are sleeping -
and it's not because he is a night owl. When he arrived in Philadelphia, he
asked Flyers management for his own key to the Skate Zone in Voorhees. "He thinks the game," Laviolette said. "He's
a smart guy. When you talk hockey, or you bring out a board, or things that go
on, he speaks up. He's seen a lot. He's done a lot."
Legend has it that his teammates returned from a preseason
game in New Jersey in September after midnight and Jagr was skating by himself
on the ice in half-darkness. "I still do it all the time," Jagr said.
"It's a lot easier. No one is bothering you, you can do whatever you want
and work on whatever you want." The security guards who keep watch over the locker room in
South Philadelphia love him. Jagr is worth a few hours of overtime pay per
game. More than 2 hours after most games end, Jagr and the cleanup crew are the
only ones left, along with the security guards who can't go until Jagr does.
He takes his time at practice, too. After the usual hourlong
skate, Jagr returns to the locker room to put on a 40-pound weighted vest and
two ankle weights on his skates to go skate until his legs burn. "When I came into the league with Pittsburgh, I liked
to work out, but I didn't know how to work out," Jagr said. "Paul
Coffey told me, 'You're going to do everything I do.'
"You should have seen those crazy bastards working
after games and practices. It was sick how they worked. [Ulf] Samuelsson, Kevin
Stevens, Rick Tocchet, Coffey. They were all insane." To hear him explain it, Jagr's body has developed an
internal voice. He knows his body's limits and when to back off. "Most people think when you are tired, you take a
rest," Jagr said. "Coffey was the one who taught me, when you're
tired, that's when you've got to work harder. Since your body is tired, you
aren't used to that. You'll raise the level and next time your body won't be
tired.
"After the game, I'm just investing myself for next
game. Sometimes, it's [bleeping] tough to do that." Jagr drags himself through workouts after the game to feel
fresh for the next one. "The enjoyment of hockey for me is to be in such good
shape that you're not struggling, so you don't feel like the game is hard for
you," he said. "All of a sudden, the third period comes and you don't
feel tired. When you start believing, it starts working."
Off the ice, Jagr is finally comfortable with himself.
A part of him has always been religious, but it wasn't until
after he turned 30 that he recognized that fact. Jagr, a bigger Czech icon than
maybe even the country's president, was not baptized by the metropolitan bishop
of Prague until 2001. Jagr's homeland used to be operated under the iron fist of
communism. Religion was not practiced, since it interfered with the communist
propaganda.
"They put all of the religious people in jail,"
Jagr said. "That's why in our country, not very many people are religious
today." Jagr's grandfather died in jail in 1968 after being locked
up by the Soviet forces for refusing to work his farm for free. That is one of
the reasons why he has only worn No. 68 on his jersey throughout his entire
career. And the number also honors the brave period of political liberalization
and rebellion in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Voracek wears No. 93 to celebrate the powerful and peaceful
split of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. (Jagr's trademarked salute goal celebration is not a
military tribute, but rather because he enjoyed Terrell Davis' Mile High Salute
with the Denver Broncos in the 1990s.) It took until he left the NHL for Russia in 2006 for him to
finally be more open about religion. The religious mementos in his locker are a
Russian thing. Sergei Bobrovsky sets up a similar relic in his stall. Detroit's
Pavel Datsyuk has been known to carry the same sacred objects.
In Russia, Jagr said, God helped him get through tough
times, because "things are kind of [messed] up there." Ask him about Alexei Cherepanov, his 19-year-old linemate
and New York Rangers first-round pick who collapsed and died in his arms on the
bench during a game, and Jagr fills up with tears. Ditto with the September
plane crash that killed the entire Lokomotiv Yaroslav team, with many friends
on board. "When I was in Russia, I learned not to hide it and not
to be ashamed of it," Jagr said. "No one hides it there. No one looks
at you like you're crazy there. They need positive energy. Here [in the United
States], I'm older and I don't care. But when I was younger and first came into
the league, you look around to see if someone will laugh at you. When you are
older, you don't worry about that stuff."
He doesn't care what his teammates think. No one has asked,
he says. Jagr openly practices religion in a sport that disdains individuality. "If it was more than three players, I'd be
shocked," another player said. "Even if some of those guys went to
church in that HBO episode of '24/7,' I'd bet it's the only time they've
gone."
Since 1974, there has been a designated chapel in every
Major League Baseball stadium for daily and Sunday ritual during the season.
More than 3,000 players in the majors and minors participate every week,
including notable stars such as Jimmy Rollins, Jake Peavy and even J.D. Drew. Bible study is a weekly activity in the NFL. Eagles coach
Andy Reid, a Mormon by faith, has been known to lead his team in prayer from
time to time. "Nobody really does it, not in hockey," Jagr said.
"I think there are so many guys who believe in a higher power, a belief in
something bigger than themselves. They believe that good things happen to
people who do good things. I think most of the people in this room have that -
they just need to find it."
That doesn't mean Jagr is eager to pass on his religious
beliefs to a teammate. Heck, Jagr is barely willing to share his training tips.
It's not because he wants to keep them secret, but he doesn't want to take
someone off his game. That is one thing that has changed in him, an added bonus
Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren maybe wasn't considering when he signed
Jagr to that surprising $3.3 million deal last summer. Jagr took the Czech national team's young players under his
wing in recent years. He has shared the tips, tricks and secrets from a 22-year
career that has seen him become one of three players in the entire world to win
the Stanley Cup, an Olympic gold medal and a world championship each twice.
"Any little advice you give someone, I believe, changes
their life in some way," Jagr said. "If I give someone advice, I need
to make sure that it 100 percent works. I can't be wrong." His relationship with burgeoning superstar Claude Giroux has
been nothing short of a proverbial godsend for the Flyers. Just last week, long
after the Flyers had wrapped up an hourlong practice, a sweat-stained Jagr
pulled aside Giroux in the hallway outside the team's lunch room. Jagr is nearly 16 years older than Giroux. A zany skater with
a mullet to die for, Jagr was already a Stanley Cup champion before Giroux
celebrated his fourth birthday in 1991.
Jagr's impact on Giroux, from the workout tips to the on-ice
training sessions, has been evident since Jagr's arrival. His first nickname for
Giroux was "Little Mario" in honor of Mario Lemieux, but the
"little" moniker quickly fell by the wayside after Giroux's 93-point
regular season. Jagr credited Giroux for wanting to be better, and Giroux
soaked in all the knowledge he could from the 1,600-point scorer. "I feel pretty special to have him around to show me
the way," Giroux said. "I'm just a young kid still, I came into this
league not knowing what to expect. And then I saw 'Jags,' and he's one of the
hardest-working guys in the league." The conversation with Giroux last week, one of many during
that day alone, lasted more than 20 minutes. Jagr was moving his hands in all
sorts of directions, as if he was diagramming a play in thin air. Giroux nodded
along in agreement.
"Every practice, I learn something new," Giroux
said. "I think he's learning, too. I've never had a real teacher, let
alone a legend like that." With anything in life, religion and hockey take dedication,
passion and belief. Amazingly, Jagr says if he were not a professional hockey
player, he could see himself being a priest because of the strong connection
between dedicating your life to your work and helping others. For him, priesthood is not too different from his own life.
Jagr has his vices. He is no choirboy. His name has made it to the gossip
column once or twice in his long career. But he does not drink alcohol and
rarely spends much time out.
Jagr is not married. It's not because he is not capable of
love or afraid of marriage. In fact, he said love is "the greatest gift
that one can give." It's just that Jagr is in love with hockey. One of his
country's most eligible bachelors, he has a steady, longtime girlfriend who
understands his pursuit of perfection on the ice. His ultimate goal is to make
the fans happy, so he can be happy. He says he doesn't have a wife or kids because he wouldn't
be able to bring himself to leave home late at night to train at the rink - or
to go on weeklong road trips. Many players juggle family lives, but Jagr does
not want to take away from one to give to the other.
"I'd rather be at the rink than be at home sitting and
staring at the TV," Jagr said. "What good does that do? I just know I
couldn't leave if I was married. That wouldn't be right to them." Not surprisingly, few players have done it as well as Jagr
over the last 2 decades. And that's why Jagr went on his pursuit to find a
higher power, to say thanks. "Not too many people understand," Jagr said.
"I've always felt differently. I've always felt like I had a big help, I
know I have a big gift from someone else."
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