Jaromír Jágr, a Czech ice hockey right winger who has won the National Hockey League’s (NHL) coveted Art Ross Trophy as leading point scorer five times during his career, has agreed to one-year contract $3.3 million contract with the Philadelphia Flyers.
Jágr, 39, played the last three seasons in Russia. All week long he had a $2 million offer on the table from the Pittsburgh Penguins, a team he led to two Stanley Cup titles in the 1990s, before the Flyers upped the offer. Now a free agent, he also played for the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals.
“Jaromír Jágr is one of the better players at the cycle game that there is in the game," said Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren told the Philadelphia Inquirer, adding that the Czech star is a fitness fanatic and that he wasn’t concerned about his age. “He’s a big, strong guy who can really control the puck in the offensive zone, and he’s a big body in front of the net, too.” ‘He’s a big, strong guy who can really control the puck in the offensive zone.’
Playing on the Czech national team, 6-foot-3, 240-pound Jágr won an Olympic gold medal in 1998 and a bronze in 2006. He also won world championships in 2005 and 2010.
Jágr has also won a Hart Trophy as the American hockey league’s most valuable player and been named to seven NHL First All-Star Teams. He is currently in the top 15 NHL players in career goals, assists and points (as of the end of the 2010–11 NHL season), and is the all-time leader among European trained players in all three categories.
For his entire career, Jágr has worn the number 68 on his jersey in honor of the Prague Spring rebellion in Czechoslovakia that led to the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968.
