Jaromir Graybeard
Last night (yes, the dates on the blog are a bit off – I know I promise a blog a day but sometimes I get a couple of days behind. Today, for instance, is the 22nd of February but I need to write 3 or 4 blogs today just to catch up. Sooner or later I will get my act together) we watched the Czech Republic lose to Russia in Olympic hockey.
There is a long tradition of Czechs losing to the Russians in Hockey, and other things. That is what, perhaps, made the Gold Medal in Nagano, in 1998, so sweet. If you ask Czechs (who are old enough) where they were when the Russian tanks rolled in in ’68, you will get some vague answer which, in essence, means mind your own business, foreigner. Even if you ask them where they were in 1989, when communism ended for good and all, which almost everybody counts as a win, you get a vague answer. But ask them about Nagano, 1968, and it’s seared into their memory.
They are proud enough of Antonin Dvorak and Karel Capek, and teach their children about them in school, but they love Jaromir Jagr.
I’m not a huge fan of Jaromir Jagr. I arrived in the Czech Republic about 2 weeks after the miracle at Nagano, so I wasn’t so caught up in all the hero worship. I’m sure he’s a fantastic hockey player. After all, the New York Rangers paid him many millions of dollars and I’m sure their managers know a lot more about hockey than me. It just seems to me, in the years that I’ve been here, that he’s done a lot better in the NHL than he has when playing for the national team. And he gives really dull and boring interviews, but that’s pretty much par for the course for athletes. We don’t expect them to be geniuses or even scintillating personalities. Terry Bradshaw is an exception.
Mostly I’m just sick of hearing about him. Last night, after the game, he was being interviewed (Czech TV will occasionally interview other players – but they always interview Jagr) and I noticed something – white hair in his beard. In his scruffy, little, too-cool- to- shave- but- not- going- to- grow- a- proper- Abe- Lincoln beard.
(That’s how old I am. The Yasser Arafat unshaven look has gone from slovenliness to high fashion to eh, that’s the way everybody wears it now and I’ve never got over seeing it as slovenliness)
Anyway, my wife pointed out to me that at the time of Nagano they made a big deal about him being one of the youngest on the team and now they are talking about him being one of the oldest.
I try not to be sexist but I don’t like the idea of women as firefighters, boxers or combat soldiers. And I try not to be age-ist but, really, athletes should be young. Full of energy, ambition and hope for the future. They should not have white beards.
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