Jaromir Jagr Shares A Great Story On Why Mario Lemieux Decided To Come Out Of Retirement And It's A Must Read

Apparently Jaromir Jagr is just like all of us and found himself going down a Mario Lemieux highlight wormhole on YouTube yesterday. And after watching one video, he decided to take to Facebook to share a story on why he thinks Super Mario decided to come out of retirement back in 2000. If you want to learn how to read in Czech, you can check out Jags’ Facebook post here. But lucky for us, a user on Reddit translated it to English and it’s a must read.

“The story begins 5 years earlier. It’s 24th March 1996. A son was born on this day but not everything was the way every parent wishes. Austin was born a couple of months early. Noone knew what would happen so Mario spent 3 days in the hospital with his wife and son. After three days of stress and without sleep, Mr. 66 got the great news – THE SON WILL LIVE AND BE HEALTHY. Mario got so excited that he decided to play a game the same day. We played against St. Louis and won. I don’t remember the exact score but I know that Mario scored 5 goals and assisted on two more. No, that’s not a typo, he scored 5 goals + 2 assists Trust me, I was there. If you don’t, just check youtube.

Life went on and Mario retired a year later. It was March 1997, Mario scored a goal against Philadelphia with two minutes left and most fans considered this the last goal of his career.

Then, for three years, he devoted his time to his family and golf, but also his club the Penguins where he was the owner. He didn’t miss a single game, sometimes he visited practices too and with him his (at the time 4 year old) son Austin. He loved hockey too and didn’t do anything without a hockey stick in his hands. One day he wandedred into the staff room and started talking to the person sharpening our skates. Austin: ‘Hi Steve, what’s going on?’ Steve: ‘Hi, I’m sharpening the skates for our players, we have a game today.’ Austin: ‘I know, I will be there. And who’s the player on the poster (pointing at Mario Lemieux poster)?’. ‘That’s your father!’ said Steve. ‘My father played hockey??’. Steve looked at Austin in disbelief and said ‘Your father was the best player in the world for a long time!’. ‘Oh, I didn’t know,’ said Austin and left to continue playing with his ball…

I know for a fact that Mario found out about this conversation between Steve and Austin. A MONTH LATER HE ANNOUNCED THAT HE WAS COMING BACK… The first two games were against Toronto and Ottawa. We won both of them and do you know what Mario’s total was? Two games – two goals and five assists. After 3 and a half years of leisure. UNBELIEVABLE. This story about little Austin is in my opinion the main reason why Mario returned to the ice. Austin finally saw his father play and Lemieux proved once again that he is the best player of all times.”

Pretty amazing stuff. It’s difficult for me to ever say anything nice about the Pittsburgh Penguins, but Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr are two of the greatest to ever lace them up. Maybe if Crosby and Malkin could be even half as likable as those two, I wouldn’t hate the Penguins with every fiber of my body. The way those two played the game together was magical and both of them seem like a couple of the best people off the ice as well. This story only reaffirms that. And I don’t care what team you’re a fan of, there’s just no way you can watch this video of Super Mario’s first goal in his first game coming out of retirement and not get all of the chills.

And here’s that 5 goal night against St. Louis Jagr was talking about. Such a beauty.

s/t to Reddit user u/Ludvo for the translation.