The Pittsburgh Penguins of the early 1990s were great, a great team that should have won two more championships. Eight of the 20 players dressed the night the Minnesota Penguins won their first Stanley Cup on May 25, 1991, have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. The coaches and general managers of these teams are also inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
So it’s fitting that Jaromir Jagr will one day become the team’s ninth player to have a bust displayed in Toronto.
You can’t talk about the ’90s without the number nine, and you can’t discuss ’90s culture in Pittsburgh without Jagr.
deeper
The Pittsburgh story that created Jaromir Jagr’s legacy
“The players were parking in the outdoor parking lot at Civic Arena,” said former Penguins teammate Rick Tocchet. “I mean, when Jaguar walked to his car, the teenager standing there was going absolutely crazy. He had the mullet going. It was all ’90s clothes. It was like the Beatles showed up.”
Oh, the mullet. Plenty of players have sported mullets a long time ago, but few can proudly display hair like Jagger’s.
Jagr wore a mullet nearly his entire career in Pittsburgh from 1990 to 2001. While the mullet is more of an ’80s phenomenon in the United States, the fashion in Pittsburgh is historically a decade behind. So he was a Pittsburgher from the beginning, a teenager who grew up in a communist country and somehow fit into it from the beginning.
“Part of his appeal was his overall appearance,” said longtime Penguins broadcaster Paul Steigerwald, who immediately introduced Jagr to Pittsburgh in 1990, just as he did in 1984 Same goes for introducing Mario Lemieux.
“When Jagr showed up in Pittsburgh, he looked like a character from Thor. He was certainly handsome, but also very exotic. He was a mythical, ancient creature that we had never seen before. Anyone who looks like him, especially at 18 years old. People fall in love with him immediately and fall in love with him very quickly.”
Jagr arrived in Pittsburgh in the summer of 1990, speaking little English. Like many people in his position, he learned the language through television in the 1990s.
In particular, Jagger binge-watched “Married…With Children” and “Saved by the Bell.”
A few years into his career, there was a celebrity hockey game at Civic Arena after a Penguins game. One of the participants was Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who plays Zach Morris on “The Bell.”
Jagr realized this after the Penguins game.
“I can still hear him screaming about it in the locker room,” said Pittsburgh radio host Mark Madden, who covered the Penguins for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at the time. “He kept yelling at Peter Nedvěd to hurry up and get dressed so they could go watch Zach Morris play hockey. He was so excited about it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that He was so happy.”
Jagr’s excitement at seeing his ’90s teen idol pales in comparison to Pittsburgh’s excitement for its own teen idol.
Teenage boy in Pittsburgh tries to grow his hair as pretty as Jagger. Few succeed, but many try. Teenage girl in Pittsburgh tries to date Jagger. Many people succeeded.
“He’s the ultimate rock star,” Tocchet said. “I’ve never seen young people fall in love with a player like him.”
When Jagger’s sweet tooth for Kit Kat bars became public knowledge, the Penguins suddenly had a problem. Thousands of Kit Kats arrive in the mail at Civic Arena.
“Oh my God, Kit Kat bars,” former Penguins teammate Kevin Stevens said with a laugh.
Jagr’s preference for them — and his fans’ reaction to it — forced Penguins spokesman Mike Lange to make the announcement.
“I have to broadcast during the game and people have to stop sending Kit Kat bars into the arena,” Lange said. “Things have gotten out of hand.”
The same goes for Jagger’s driving. While exact numbers are unclear, Jagr received numerous speeding tickets during his first two years in Pittsburgh. He’s not too interested in small details like speed limits.
Speeding tickets became so frequent that Jagr briefly lost his driver’s license during the 1992 playoffs, forcing Lemieux to provide transportation to and from games.
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Yohe: Jaromir Jagr, Mike Lange bond with riding the bus
It’s a good thing Jagr is making it to the playoffs. That’s when he became an ice star. After leaving the ice, he has been an ice player for several years.
These Penguins have some of the greatest players of all time, and perhaps the only thing more noteworthy than their talent is their personalities. Although Lemieux was shy, he was brash and well-liked by his teammates in Pittsburgh. Stevens made his famous prediction when the Penguins trailed the Bruins in the 1991 Wells conference finals. Phil Bourque talks about “living on the river all summer long” about the Stanley Cup, and then he does just that. Ulf Samuelsson was probably the loudest of the bunch.
But then there’s Jagger, who’s probably the biggest personality of them all.
After the Penguins won playoff series in 1991 and 1992, he simply took over the interview, taking the microphone from the reporter and editing a monologue on live television.
His comments in Chicago after the Penguins swept the Blackhawks to win the Stanley Cup in 1992 became legendary in Pittsburgh. Langer’s cry of “Aves just left the building” after the Penguins’ win wasn’t lost on Jagr.
He was asked about the parade that would be held in Pittsburgh to commemorate the victory.
“I want to meet some pretty girls,” he replied. “I don’t care about Ives. Just pretty girl. Hello.”
As Jagr’s great development progressed into the mid-1990s, so too did Jagr’s marketing.
Kids in Pittsburgh eat more than just peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. Instead, it has to be Jaromir Jagr Peanut Butter.
Jagger was not particularly mature at that time. He doesn’t have to be like this. The Penguins have a lot of adults, and Jagr’s boyish personality makes him even more popular in Pittsburgh, especially among the Penguins’ growing base of young fans.
Lemieux could be the king, and he was. Jagger is a prince. He often appears on local television to provide weather forecasts. He did the same thing on the WDVE morning radio show. He was the class clown, but he was also smarter than anyone in the class. A burst of laughter and smiles made everyone intoxicated.
“It was like when Pierre LaRouche showed up in Pittsburgh,” Lange said. “It was like when Paul Coffey came along. But I think Jaromil had a bigger impact. You never saw people fall in love with someone like this.”
Jagr wears a denim jacket, is obsessed with pop TV shows, and loves grunge music. Perhaps what was unique about him was that he came from a far away land with a very different culture, but he was very American from the beginning.
Even before Jagger arrived in Pittsburgh, he carried a photo of Ronald Regan in his wallet. To him, America was the Promised Land.
Pittsburgh quickly became his playground, and he became a rare cultural influence in sports.
“I saw it the first time I took him to the mall,” Steigerwald said. “He was just like any other kid in that mall. He was just bigger, stronger, had better hair, and had better hockey. He was just so cool. Everybody wanted to be like him.”
Of course, it was just him.
“He had the whole city wrapped around his finger,” Stevens said. “He’s a heartthrob at 18 years old. It’s something to see. People want to be around him, want to be like him.”
(Photo: Almesserschmidt/AP)
