Jagr still bringing it

At the age of 38, Jaromir Jagr is still bringing it, having scored 2 goals and 3 assists in his first two games for the Czech Republic at this month's World Championships. Jagr has had a long and storied career in hockey. He's a member of the triple gold club, having won a Stanley Cup (two, actually), an Olympic gold medal, and a World Championship. He's won all sorts of NHL records and led the NHL in scoring five times. He won one Hart trophy for MVP of the league. He has 1,599 points in 1,273 regular season NHL games, and 181 points in 169 games. Prolific numbers. He doesn't have to prove anything to anyone.

But Jagr's decision to play for his home country during the World Championships wasn't one that all of his fellow top Czechs emulated. As a result, the Czechs were recently upset by NORWAY. Not exactly an international powerhouse.

Recently Jagr challenged the younger players to start showing up:

"It's the national team. We didn't really have a lot of success lately and a lot of guys said no in our country," he said. "I understand the guys are injured or they feel tired after the season, but look at guys like Ovechkin or Kovalchuk [playing for Team Russia]." He concluded: "I think you've got to be a little more proud of your country."

Jaromir Jagr has demonstrated his national pride time and again, playing internationally more often than not, even after his regular team has been eliminated from the playoffs. If 38-year old Jaromir Jagr can play an extra 5+ games at the end of his regular season, and bring his best game, so can players half his age.

Team USA, clearly, is not alone in having some of its best players decide to stay home. But unlike the Czechs, Team USA may have had more to lose. We saw what they did at the Olympics with a full roster, coming within one overtime goal of defeating Team Canada, the heavily favored host country, in the Gold Medal game. With a full roster Team USA could have used that Olympics momentum to challenge for gold at this year's World Championships. Which would have been nice, because the last time they finished higher than third was in 1960 (!). Now they're in danger of being relegated after only three games.

It's time guys like Zach Parise, Bobby Ryan, Phil Kessel, and Erik Johnson started listening to old Jaromir Jagr. Not that he's slowed down and has an increasingly grey beard, Jagr is becoming something of a soothsayer.