Semi or Super-Serious "Life & Hockey" Post

Jaromir Jagr, Sergei Fedorov, and Peter Forsberg are considered the "veteran" old men of (respectively) the Czech Republic, Russian, and Swedish Olympic hockey teams.

I remember all of these players before they hit their primes. When I was a teenager, these players were just hitting their prime years. But I distinctly remember them as young and promising. And, perhaps more importantly, I remember them as dominant champions. Jagr twirling through 4 Blackhawks in the 1992 Finals; Jagr in the 1999 playoffs willing his Pittsburgh Penguins past the New Jersey Devils while playing through a significant groin injury.

The memories of Fedorov and Forsberg aren't as strong as are my many hometown-laden Jagr memories, but they're there. Fedorov on those dominant Detroit teams. Fedorov as the league MVP, as the NHL's best player, Fedorov playing on the same team as Steve Yzerman. Forsberg being an incredible mix of brute strength and scoring acumen, Forsberg winning championships and playing on the same team as Joe Sakic.

And then comes the 2010 Olympics. And the memories are mixed. Because, juxtaposed with the memories of utter dominance, come the more recent quotes.

Fedorov, at one point last season, quoted in the Washington Post. Along with his brother, watching old clips of himself on YouTube. And the quote: "Once, I was good." Fedorov, marveling at what he once was able to do on the ice.

Similar to last season's Fedorov quote, Jagr's most recent quote on regrowing his mullet is full of, well, poignancy probably sounds overbearing. Wistfulness? Here's the quote: "I thought about how I could be closer to the Jagr of 15 years ago. I'm not going to be the guy. I'm going to be a guy. I'm not going to score the goals I did. So I decided to grow the hair." Jaromir Jagr, at age 38 now, two decades removed from his NHL rookie season, closer to the end of his career than the end, no longer able to do what he once did on the ice, and, to remember who he was, he's reduced to restoring the mullet he abandoned back in the nineties, when, by the way, he was the best player in the dead-puck era of NHL clutch-and-grab hockey and regularly put up 100 point season with two defensemen draped all over him?

In sports, aging and retirement are inevitable, as evidenced, in the Olympics, by the fact that the executive directors of the Olympic hockey teams are, most typically, former star players. But former star players all age, and hockey, especially today, is a young man's sport. Close to forty in life means half a life yet to be lived, and yet, the to-this-point all-consuming life work of professional hockey is close to coming to an end for Jagr, Fedorov, and Forsberg.

And allow me to protest: I don't like it, and I don't want to accept it. I have always viewed the inevitable aging and retirement of athletes as a corollary for the fact that all human beings (though, in my late twenties, I don't like it think about it a lot) will eventually die. And frankly speaking, facing the inevitable, which is clearly seen in the stat lines that Jagr and Fedorov currently put up in the KHL, that all athletes age and retire--I've seen it. I accept it. I get it.

Because, you see, at my age, I've already seen this. Not yet for the players, like Fedorov and Jagr, I can recall as kids. But for Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Ron Francis; I've seen this before, I know this story, and I just get it. I accept it. It's part of sports, part of the game, and when it comes to "real life," this is just real life. People get old. People die. That, this side of eternity, is part of what it means to be alive: to acknowledge these realities.

Yet, allow me to be honest about the "graybeards," hard as it is for me to think of men who once flew all over the ice as "aged veterans". I get that they're not going to be "the" guy. I get that they're there not because they can still play thirty minutes a game with no issue but because they're to supplement the young stars who can play those thirty minutes a night.

But, because, this is, most likely, the last hurrah, allow me to admit why I'm going to use the technology I love to tape the Czech Republic and Russian games I can't stay awake to see (what with you know, real world responsibilities of work and other things). I don't need to see them be "the" guy anymore. The YouTube clips that Fedorov perused with his brother; contemporary technology allows me to see those clips of Fedorov, Forsberg, and Jagr in their dominant glory whenever I feel like it.

I'm not interested in the past at these Olympics. I'm interested in the present. And I'm looking for that reminder. Just that glimpse of what once was. That I saw of Fedorov, yes, even in the playoffs last season. That I hope to see in Jagr. That all Sweden is hoping to see, one more time, in Forsberg who was originally an amateur Olympic hero.

Because, you see, I'm an adult now. I get and grasp that players get old and retire, and I get the corollary of what that inevitability in the world of sports translates to in the realm of all human life. But, you see, in the midst of that grown-up, grounded reality, it's important to remember that reality isn't the whole story, the complete story, or the true story.

That Forsberg, Fedorov, and Jagr aren't just hockey players who had what happens to a human body when it's been playing a sport at an elite level for a half a lifetime happen to them. That, whether it's a one-time look at a sweet shootout move of Forsberg's, or a smart play by Fedorov, or Jagr easily shaking off a defenseman, that there remains a glimpse of what, along with the grounded reality that every pro athlete gets too old and has to retire, always has been true. That Jagr, Fedorov, and Forsberg; even though they're no longer at their peak, in their prime, still have something to contribute, and that contribution is based on who they still are, always have been, and always will be.

So I'll be watching those Olympic hockey games for a glimpse from the old graybeards, from the once-dominant stars it's still hard for me to acknowledge as slower, experienced veterans, and, if, because I don't have the time, as I once did, just to watch the hockey games with no other thought, I'm pretty sure someone, though they may not have blogged about it like this, will have a similar thought, even consciously, and upload the clip to YouTube as a "Check out what he just--and still--did!"

Because, really, isn't that part of what the Olympics are all about? That reminder that the whole story isn't always the ordinary but, however cliche it is, extraordinary?

Even if the extraordinary is no longer being the dominant driving forces who propel your team to a gold medal but rather playing on bottom lines and contributing all you have left to give, even if "all that" is a mere couple of points and lots of simply being a presence who's there to direct, guide, and nudge those still physically capable of making the extraordinary difference on the scoreboard to fulfill what they can in the oh-so-short time that remains when they're at the top of their games, the top of the world, and capable of competing at the most elite level?