[Article] Jaromir Jagr announces he'll return for age-51 season in Czech pro league

[RWJC]

Jaromir Jagr announces he'll return for age-51 season in Czech pro league

The ageless wonder announced that he'll once again suit up at the pro-level, playing a seventh straight season for his hometown Kladno Knights.

Jacob Stoller

Sat, September 16, 2023 at 11:26 AM PDT
 

Jaromir Jagr ain’t ever leaving.

In a Saturday morning Facebook post, the 51-year-old future Hockey Hall of Famer heavily alluded that he intended to play yet another year for the Czechia professional team he owns, the Rytiri Kladno Knights

“Another hockey season has begun. I just read that I played extraliga for Kladno for the first time 35 years ago. It’s been a minute,” Jagr said in the post via Google Translate. “But the nervousness, the anticipation before the start... This is still the same.”
 

The 2023-24 season will mark the seventh straight season Jagr will play for Kladno — a franchise he’s owned since the 2011-12 season. Jagr, who first suited up for Kladno in 1988-89, recorded 14 points in 26 games with the Knights last season. Since re-joining his hometown team, Jagr has helped Kladno avoid relegation to the second-tier Czechia league and avoid bankruptcy.

“I would never have been a hockey player if it was not for this town and this club,” Jagr told The New York Times back in February. “I would be a totally different person. This club and this city made my life. It’s my responsibility to give it back.”

Jagr, one of the greatest hockey players of all time, last played in the NHL during the 2017-18 season with the Calgary Flames at the age of 45, making him the third oldest NHL player of all time.

Over the span of 24 NHL seasons, split between nine different NHL clubs, Jagr accumulated 766 goals, which ranks fourth all-time, and 1921 points — placing him behind Wayne Gretzky for the most points in NHL history. Jagr also collected a ton of hardware throughout his career, winning two Stanley Cups, five Art Ross Trophies, one Hart Trophy, three Lester B. Pearson Trophies and a Bill Masterson Trophy to boot.

 

https://ca.yahoo.com/sports/news/jaromir-jagr-announces-hell-return-for-age-51-season-in-czech-pro-league-182617879.html

Edited September 19, 2023 by RWJC

[Snoop Hogg]

Chris Chelios can play for them too. 

[-AJ-]

Crazy to think that Howe played in the NHL at the same age and was a capable 3rd liner.

[Alflives]

1 minute ago, -AJ- said:

Crazy to think that Howe played in the NHL at the same age and was a capable 3rd liner.

Howe was strong like a horse. 
 

[Ilunga]

11 minutes ago, Alflives said:

Howe was strong like a horse. 
 

I can't post photos, computin illiterate.

There is an image of Bobby Hull pitch forking a bail of hay.

He looks like superman

[Alflives]

3 minutes ago, Ilunga said:

I can't post photos, computin illiterate.

There is an image of Bobby Hull pitch forking a bail of hay.

He looks like superman

Farm boy strength.

 

[Bobby Lou]

4 minutes ago, Ilunga said:

I can't post photos, computin illiterate.

There is an image of Bobby Hull pitch forking a bail of hay.

He looks like superman

[RWJC]

Roids. Jk

[Bobby Lou]

2 minutes ago, Alflives said:

Farm boy strength.

 

Just beat me to it

[Snoop Hogg]

41 minutes ago, RWJC said:

Roids. Jk

 

[RWJC]

4 minutes ago, Snoop Hogg said:

 

Nah brother, everyone knows the Hulkster’s body is only a result of sayin your prayers and taking your vitamins. 
Really strong vitamins, brother. 
 

Edited September 17, 2023 by RWJC

[gwarrior]

Man, Jagr is gonna play till the team tells him to stop. 

[Alflives]

1 minute ago, gwarrior said:

Man, Jagr is gonna play till the team tells him to stop. 

Isn’t he part owner? 

[gwarrior]

If he isn't the whole owner, then yeah. What I was getting at is maybe the coaching staff kinda says "no, you're taking a roster spot from a younger player".

[Miss Korea]

5 minutes ago, gwarrior said:

If he isn't the whole owner, then yeah. What I was getting at is maybe the coaching staff kinda says "no, you're taking a roster spot from a younger player".

No dude they are absolutely desperate to fill seats right now the team is in dire straits

 

Jagr is never going to make the Hockey Hall of Fame this way

[Coconuts]

Crazy to think what his numbers would be if he'd just stuck to the NHL 

[Bobby Lou]

Kladno is in pretty bad shape without him. His father had ties to the team as well and Jaromir is not only an owner/player but he secures and has been securing the teams sponsors for quite some time. I believe he's worries without his playing the team would cease to find sponsorship and fall into bankruptcy... gotta admire the guy he's given so much back to his hometown and continues to do so. Truly a legend  

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/sports/hockey/jaromir-jagr-czech-extraliga.html

[Bobby Lou]

7 minutes ago, Bobby Lou said:

Kladno is in pretty bad shape without him. His father had ties to the team as well and Jaromir is not only an owner/player but he secures and has been securing the teams sponsors for quite some time. I believe he's worries without his playing the team would cease to find sponsorship and fall into bankruptcy... gotta admire the guy he's given so much back to his hometown and continues to do so. Truly a legend  

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/sports/hockey/jaromir-jagr-czech-extraliga.html

 

Link doesn't wanna go unless subscribed so I've copied the article. Good read for anyone interested  

The 51-Year-Old Hockey Star Who Won’t Quit

The former N.H.L. star Jaromir Jagr is playing his 35th season of pro hockey, now for his hometown team in the Czech Republic. He knows its very survival depends on him.

 

Credit...Nina Riggio for The New York Times

By David Waldstein

Feb. 28, 2023

KLADNO, Czech Republic — The boisterous fans in the standing section at CEZ Stadion unfurled a giant banner last week. It bore the unmistakable, bearded likeness of Rytiri Kladno’s owner, as fans across the arena serenaded him and presented him with a birthday cake after the game.

Owners of sports teams rarely enjoy such adoration, but this one is Jaromir Jagr, who is also one of Kladno’s best players: Not just in its history, but now, in 2023, at age 51.

“He is not the player he once was, of course, but he is still good,” said Vojtech Absolin, who conducts the fan chorus, “and he means everything to the club.”

Still good, Jagr was once truly great, starring in the N.H.L. over 24 seasons on nine teams, winning two Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins, collecting a Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player in the 1998-99 season and tallying 1,921 points, second only to Wayne  Gretzky’s 2,857. 

Among the many accomplishments reached by older athletes recently — from Tom Brady’s retirement at 45, Serena Williams’s at 40 and LeBron James’s reaching the N.B.A. career scoring summit at 38 — Jagr stands out, not because he is playing in his 35th consecutive season of professional hockey, but because he does so for a cause.

He spent his 51st birthday in February distributing crisp passes, fending off opponents with his bulky backside, handing out the occasional crosscheck and pushing Kladno to a critical win late in the season.

But Jagr, whose teammates are mostly in their 20s, is more than an aging athlete stubbornly clinging to a fading career. He is a savior of sorts, a national treasure from modest Kladno who bears the very existence of his struggling club, and by extension this postindustrial town, atop his sturdy shoulders, much as his father did before him.

At 51, Jagr is more than an aging athlete stubbornly clinging to a fading career. He still plays because he loves the game and because he can.Credit...Nina Riggio for The New York Times

The Kladno neighborhood where Jagr grew up.Credit...Nina Riggio for The New York Times

“I would never have been a hockey player if it was not for this town and this club,” Jagr said last week, an hour after a tough overtime loss. “I would be a totally different person. This club and this city made my life. It’s my responsibility to give it back.”

Jagr’s play helps the team stave off the threat of relegation from the Czech Republic’s top hockey league and bankruptcy; keeps badly needed money flowing from sponsors, many of whom prefer to be associated with his name and likeness, rather than the last-place club. Mostly, Jagr still plays because he adores it, because he can, and because he loves to eat.

Jagr’s playing weight in the N.H.L. was roughly 240 pounds. These days he is between 265 and 270 pounds, he said, but like retirement, dieting is not in his immediate future.

“First of all, it’s fun,” he said while scarfing down a ham sandwich in the modest V.I.P. lounge of the newly renovated, city-owned stadium in Kladno. “Second, if you stop, you are going to get fat and unhealthy and get surgeries on back, knees and hips. I would crash down. I see it on everybody else. I’m not doing that. I want to have a happy life, so I’m going to work hard until I die, because it’s the only way.”

Hard work has long defined Jagr, beginning when he was a child on his family’s farm. His hockey workouts are legendary, and he enhances them now by practicing with a 25-pound stick, ankle weights and a weighted vest; shooting six-inch go-kart tires across the ice; and stickhandling in a pool to increase resistance.

“He’s a different kind of animal,” said Landon Bow, Kladno’s goalie, who is from St. Albert, Alberta. “He’s a little crazy like that.”

Playing road hockey outside the stadium in Kladno.Credit...Nina Riggio for The New York Times

In Bow’s two years in Kladno, he has seen Jagr’s impact.

“Without him, I don’t know if there is a team here,” Bow said. “He’s pouring in hours of work to make sure everything is up and running. We don’t have the biggest budget, but he’s making sure we have sponsors and we have a team. It’s his baby, and it’s amazing to see how much people love him.”

 

The Pittsburgh of the Czech Republic

With its quaint, medieval city center, modern residential flats and outer farmland, Kladno was once a thriving industrial (and hockey) center of Europe. Known for its mines and the great Poldi steel works, which Karl Wittgenstein (father of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein) opened in 1889, it sits less than 20 miles northwest of old Prague.

 

Under the postwar Communist regime, the steel factory sponsored the club and Poldi Kladno enjoyed a small dynasty, winning five national championships from 1975 to 1980, behind Milan Novy, perhaps the second-best player in Czech hockey history.

“This city has got such a big history,” Jagr said.

Kladno’s population during that period was about 50,000, and roughly 20,000 worked at Poldi. But when the Communist government fell in 1989, the factory, unprepared for the free market, collapsed. People sought work elsewhere, especially in Prague and at the airport that sits between the two cities. The factory buildings still stand, but only a fraction are in use, by a few small companies.

Jan Ulrych, 46, a data analyst who lives in Kladno, takes his son to the occasional game. He recounted the handful of occasions that he and family members have spotted Jagr out and about in the city of 70,000. He gestured at the quiet, orderly streets, mostly empty on weekends.

“I always thought it was an ugly, industrial town with nothing going on,” he added. “But I found out that it’s not that bad. Jagr being back, maybe it helps a bit, too.”

Jagr grew up about a 10-minute drive north of the arena, not far from the old steel plant, in a section of Kladno called Hnidousy. Jagr drew a map to help a reporter locate his old house, marking a tree to one side and a small schoolhouse across the road.

His grandfather owned the farm, but most of it was confiscated by the hated, Soviet-backed Communist government that took over after World War II. Jagr’s grandfather was imprisoned for refusing to willingly hand over the land, and died in 1968, the same year Warsaw Pact tanks rumbled into the country to crush a growing independence movement. It is why Jagr still wears No. 68.

 

Kladno players warmed up before their game.Credit...Nina Riggio for The New York Times

 

 

Jagr chose Kladno’s name, Rytiri, and its logo to honor his Orthodox faith.Credit...Nina Riggio for The New York Times

Jagr’s father also grew up on the farm, and worked on it almost every day, until cancer forced him to stay home. He died in November at 82, and Jagr describes his father as the artist who painted him into the man he is now.

Miroslav Hlavacek is a co-owner of a small company that installs road signs and is headquartered in a makeshift supply and equipment depot next to Jagr’s old house. A Rytiri Kladno fan, he knew Jagr’s father casually, enough to say hello when he passed by.

“Always on a tractor,” he said, using a translating app on his phone.

Jagr’s father also owned a successful building company, but farming invigorated him. While many said he was allocating precious time tending to cows, instead of his more lucrative building company, he did what he loved. Jagr similarly seeks refuge from running both the building company he inherited from his dad and the hockey club in his lifelong passion — playing the game.

“Playing is like a freedom for me and it was the same for my dad,” he said. “The farm was freedom for him because he knew it. He didn’t have to think about it. I don’t have to think how to play, how to practice. I’ve done it over and over since I was 4. I’m kind of running away from the other stuff, for this.”

Jagr marveled that his parents never took a vacation, and that ethos was imprinted on him. As a boy, he worked on the farm every day, mostly collecting huge bales of grass from a neighboring field to feed the cows.

“That is why I was so strong,” he said. “It was like going to the gym every day for five hours. Even when I was 18, I felt like I was going to be the strongest in the N.H.L., because it was such hard work. We had to do it every day, doesn’t matter if it rains. Summer was the hardest, because you have to get the food for the winter, too. From the morning, you just work until night.”

 

Jagr on the bench for the Penguins in 2001, his last season in Pittsburgh.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Obviously, he also found time to skate, and his first two professional seasons were spent with Kladno when he was 16 and 17. From there, taken fifth overall in the 1990 N.H.L. draft, he went straight to the Penguins. Jagr burst into North American arenas with his signature mullet, magnetic smile and beguiling skill, helping the Penguins to their first Stanley Cup alongside Mario Lemieux, then helping them win a second the following season.

Back in Kladno, things were not as flashy. Without the support of the Poldi factory to bolster payroll, the hockey club faced bankruptcy. The city begged Jagr’s father to buy the team lest it move or dissolve; so he did. But Kladno still struggled over the ensuing decade to compete with powerhouse teams in Prague and Brno, and money was a constant concern.

“He wanted to sell it, but that would mean it would move, and the whole city would go crazy,” Jagr said. “So, the mayor asked if I would support it. I couldn’t say no.”

This was in 2011. Jagr was finishing a three-year stint with Avangard Omsk in Russia, having left the N.H.L. after he couldn’t get a contract to his liking. He had only six weeks to secure sponsorships and public funding for his father’s hockey club before flying to the United States to make his N.H.L. return with the Philadelphia Flyers, but he pulled it off. After his final N.H.L. game, with the Calgary Flames on New Year’s Eve in 2017, Jagr returned home to give his undivided attention to Kladno.

Fighting to Stay in the League

Jagr, who has played each season for Kladno since 2018, chose the new name, Rytiri, meaning knight, and the new logo of a bearded nobleman with a cross on his helmet, to honor his Orthodox faith.

 

The college-suitable arena is tucked between a soccer stadium and a tiny wood. Some fans walk to games along nearby train tracks, bundled in scarves bearing images of Jagr and wearing team jerseys, most with Jagr’s No. 68.

Tasty, red klobasy sizzle on a grill next to the main entrance, and are sold with a splotch of brown mustard on a plate and a slice of rye bread.

 

 

As the regular season neared its end, Kladno fought for victories that could keep it from relegation.Credit...Nina Riggio for The New York Times

Vojtech Absolin, right center, led Rytiri Kladno fans in chants during a game against Olomouc.Credit...Nina Riggio for The New York Times

Last week started well for the Knights, with two wins that pulled them out of last place in the 14-team Czech Extraliga. Against Mlada Boleslav, on Jagr’s birthday, the 4,000-seat arena, while not sold out, still pulsated, especially in the standing terrace behind one of the goals, where the home fans sing and cheer in unison throughout games.

Ticket sales account for only 15 percent of revenue, Jagr said, and the rest is secured through sponsorships and municipal assistance. But the fans are passionate. Tomas Plekanec, who played 15 seasons with the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs, was one of them. Plekanec, who at 39 is the team’s second-oldest player, grew up here and played his first professional seasons for Kladno. He now centers the first line, with Jagr on his right wing, and wearing the captain’s “C” on his shirt.

“It’s just a letter,” Plekanec said after a recent practice. “He’s the owner. He’s the go-to guy for this organization, and this town.”

The Knights are in last place, trailing by a point with two games left. If they finish at the bottom, they must win a seven-game playoff against the second-division champion, or be relegated to the lower league, where it is that much harder to attract sponsors.

To meet the challenge, Jagr practices every day, even when the team does not. At the same time, he is in meetings, fretting over cash flow and directing the development of 400 youth players under the club’s umbrella.

Jagr in a scrappy game against Olomouc. Some fans have grumbled that he gets preferential treatment from referees.Credit...Nina Riggio for The New York Times

“I can see it all worries him,” said Zdenek Janda, a reporter for Denik Sport and Isport, who has covered Jagr for 20 years. “Playing is his release, and he is still good, even at 51. There were games this year when he was the best player on the ice. I think he could play until he is 65.”

In February, Jagr scored his fourth goal in 22 games. It was his 1,100th professional goal, including international play, giving him two more than Gretzky for most professional goals.

Sponsors love the international attention the occasion drew. But if Jagr stopped playing, would they go away?

“Yeah, most of them,” he said with a grim laugh.

With no major corporations in Kladno, Jagr is arguably the city’s greatest resource. David Spiller, a taxi driver, said Jagr is the Czech Republic’s most famous citizen worldwide. Spiller, 51, called him “the savior of Kladno and the sport we love,” and estimated Jagr was better-known globally than even Vaclav Havel, the writer, statesman and president from 1989 to 2003.

“There are people in this country who will tell you Jagr is God,” Spiller said. “Of course, Havel was very important. But that was for a short time. Jagr is still playing.”

 

Many of Kladno’s sponsors would most likely abandon the team if he stopped playing, Jagr said.Credit...Nina Riggio for The New York Times

A correction was made on 

Feb. 28, 2023

: 

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of seasons Jaromir Jagr spent in the N.H.L. It was 24, not 27.

---

 

[Power-Forward]

2 hours ago, Coconuts said:

Crazy to think what his numbers would be if he'd just stuck to the NHL 

probably very low lol.  He would skate around the ice like one of those portable vacuum cleaners.

[luckylager]

4 hours ago, -AJ- said:

Crazy to think that Howe played in the NHL at the same age and was a capable 3rd liner.

The game's sure changed eh

[-AJ-]

2 hours ago, luckylager said:

The game's sure changed eh

Totally. His fitness was ahead of his time. These days, that's normal and wouldn't set him a level above like it did in the early 80s.

[IBatch]

2 hours ago, -AJ- said:

Totally. His fitness was ahead of his time. These days, that's normal and wouldn't set him a level above like it did in the early 80s.

AJ know you're a hockey history nut like myself.   Just want to make sure you get this one right. He was far from the only one.   Roberts, most Soviet players, and a ton of NHLers that played in the 80's and 90's - early 2000's were in incredible shape.    A lot of them still are - not Cam Neely though lol. 

Take a look at the shirtless photos of the Oilers teams in the early 80's, then take a look at Tampa Bays volleyball game during the start of the playoffs.    Tampa Bay,  well not impressive.   Looks like they had a tough summer filled with lazy beer drinking sessions and definitely avoiding the gym.    Tochett is literally trying to whip our team into shape - he's a guy who started in the 80's.   So was Chelios.   Yes the players are in great shape...but they were then too.   There is a difference between working labour 50-60 hours a week, and going to the gym too.   Something that's in Jagr's past if you read about it.   

 

The 80's there was a huge fitness and weightlifting craze.   Movie hero's like Stallone and Arnie pushed it.   And Jagr played in the 90's.   With guys like Bure (who trained with a parachute), the older guys from the 80's, and the guys who would become the stars of the 2000's.    AJ you need to go back a decade, to the 70's to get into lack of fitness.   And especially diet.  

Howe, Hull are two examples of original six guys.    Howe was analyzed by a sports doctor, who worked with championship belt boxers, and said he was one of the most impressive athletes he'd ever tested,  as good or better than any champion boxer.    Given that include Ali, and that the 70's was the golden era of the heavyweight division ... 

Jagr had lost some foot speed when he returned in his early 40's.   Yet could still perform better then the Sedins last few seasons... He also lost 1.5 seasons due to lockouts.    Those KHL seasons, surely cost him 3 PPG seasons in the NHL.   Or close to it.  Enough to have 2100 points and over 900 goals easily with the lockout seasons.   Sakic had a shot at Hulls records too (lockout seasons).    You know how many times I've shown that the stars in their mid-late 30's, we're outproducing the stars in their 20's in the 2000's.    Just track it back using that method.   Jagr played against and with the 80's guys in their 30's,  like Borque, Coffey, Messier,  Mario, Yzerman...Larionov, Makarov, Festisov, Hawerchuk, and then against guys like St. Louis, Iginla,  Lecavalier, Sedins, Thornton, Chara, Marleau, Richards, eventually Ovi, Malkin, Kane, Crosby  and guys like him, Bure, Mogilny,  Lindros, Forsberg, Selanne, Sakic, Sundin, Alfie etc ...  after the lockout he was 33, and scored one point from the Art Ross (Thornton's one boffo season),  54 goals (Cheechoo 58 freak season)...a few seasons from bolting.    

When he came back was a possesion master, few guys  were around who could physically handle him anymore.  Was fun to watch him play keep away.   Lost a step that was apparent.   But for sure could still play.    Was the reason Boston rallied when he came back, from a 3 goal deficit in game 7 cheering on the bench.   Got Hart votes in NJ his first season back. 

Sure did better than Messier, who still managed to produce into his 40's, in the dead puck era.  

Edit:  In the early 90's my older brother was studying the soviet Red Army's diet and fitness routine to make him a better hockey player.   They had it down to a science.   Those stars of the 90's,  became those guys because of following the routines established in the 80's.   

Jagr, picture in his 50's lol.  What a unit! 

Edited September 17, 2023 by IBatch

[-AJ-]

6 hours ago, IBatch said:

AJ know you're a hockey history nut like myself.   Just want to make sure you get this one right. He was far from the only one.   Roberts, most Soviet players, and a ton of NHLers that played in the 80's and 90's - early 2000's were in incredible shape.    A lot of them still are - not Cam Neely though lol. 

Take a look at the shirtless photos of the Oilers teams in the early 80's, then take a look at Tampa Bays volleyball game during the start of the playoffs.    Tampa Bay,  well not impressive.   Looks like they had a tough summer filled with lazy beer drinking sessions and definitely avoiding the gym.    Tochett is literally trying to whip our team into shape - he's a guy who started in the 80's.   So was Chelios.   Yes the players are in great shape...but they were then too.   There is a difference between working labour 50-60 hours a week, and going to the gym too.   Something that's in Jagr's past if you read about it.   

 

The 80's there was a huge fitness and weightlifting craze.   Movie hero's like Stallone and Arnie pushed it.   And Jagr played in the 90's.   With guys like Bure (who trained with a parachute), the older guys from the 80's, and the guys who would become the stars of the 2000's.    AJ you need to go back a decade, to the 70's to get into lack of fitness.   And especially diet.  

Howe, Hull are two examples of original six guys.    Howe was analyzed by a sports doctor, who worked with championship belt boxers, and said he was one of the most impressive athletes he'd ever tested,  as good or better than any champion boxer.    Given that include Ali, and that the 70's was the golden era of the heavyweight division ... 

Jagr had lost some foot speed when he returned in his early 40's.   Yet could still perform better then the Sedins last few seasons... He also lost 1.5 seasons due to lockouts.    Those KHL seasons, surely cost him 3 PPG seasons in the NHL.   Or close to it.  Enough to have 2100 points and over 900 goals easily with the lockout seasons.   Sakic had a shot at Hulls records too (lockout seasons).    You know how many times I've shown that the stars in their mid-late 30's, we're outproducing the stars in their 20's in the 2000's.    Just track it back using that method.   Jagr played against and with the 80's guys in their 30's,  like Borque, Coffey, Messier,  Mario, Yzerman...Larionov, Makarov, Festisov, Hawerchuk, and then against guys like St. Louis, Iginla,  Lecavalier, Sedins, Thornton, Chara, Marleau, Richards, eventually Ovi, Malkin, Kane, Crosby  and guys like him, Bure, Mogilny,  Lindros, Forsberg, Selanne, Sakic, Sundin, Alfie etc ...  after the lockout he was 33, and scored one point from the Art Ross (Thornton's one boffo season),  54 goals (Cheechoo 58 freak season)...a few seasons from bolting.    

When he came back was a possesion master, few guys  were around who could physically handle him anymore.  Was fun to watch him play keep away.   Lost a step that was apparent.   But for sure could still play.    Was the reason Boston rallied when he came back, from a 3 goal deficit in game 7 cheering on the bench.   Got Hart votes in NJ his first season back. 

Sure did better than Messier, who still managed to produce into his 40's, in the dead puck era.  

Edit:  In the early 90's my older brother was studying the soviet Red Army's diet and fitness routine to make him a better hockey player.   They had it down to a science.   Those stars of the 90's,  became those guys because of following the routines established in the 80's.   

Jagr, picture in his 50's lol.  What a unit! 

Definitely some good points, though I think it's noteworthy that Howe's last season was early in the 80s in 1979-80, and I'd attribute his success at an old age towards a focus on fitness even in his 40s in the 70s and late 60s, back when "a beer and a blonde" was an acceptable pre-game meal. Things definitely started to change as the 80s went on and even moreso into the 90s.

[Dr. Crossbar]

The crazy thing with Howe was that between 46-50 years of age he was still putting up 30+ goals per season the WHA.

[CanuckDownUnder]

I remember seeing Gordie play when he was with the Whalers. He wasn't the fastest player on the ice but he was still effective as he knew the game so well.