When Jaromír Jágr began his NHL career in 1990, the Czech league in its current iteration did not exist, because the Czech Republic did not exist.
More than 32 years after debuting for the Pittsburgh Penguins, extraordinary circumstances have landed Jágr back on the ice, continuing an endless career that has given him a Hockey Reference page spanning decades.
Jágr owns Rytíři Kladno, a team in the Czech Extraliga for which he played as a 17-year-old in the 1990 season and then again during the 1995 NHL lockout. With the club decimated by illness, Jágr—six weeks shy of his 51st birthday—has returned to the ice for his hometown team for the first time in 28 years.
The result: On Tuesday, Jágr became the oldest goalscorer in Czech Extraliga history.
The goal came in Jágr’s seventh game of the season; he’d tallied five points previously, all assists.
Jágr played for the Penguins, Rangers, Capitals, Panthers, Devils, Flyers, Bruins, Stars, and Flames across a 24-year NHL career and tallied 1,921 points—ranked second all-time. Internationally, he helped the Czech Republic win gold and bronze in the 1998 and 2006 Winter Olympics, respectively.
