Along with Jágr, Pouzar and Liba, Swede Kenny Jonsson, Petteri Nummelin from Finland, Canadian Ryan Smyth, American Natalie Darwitz and Canadian trainer Mel Davidson will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. A special prize will also be awarded to the Czech national team, which won the first Olympic tournament in Nagano in 1998 in which players from the NHL competed.
Jagr, who will be 52 in mid-February, is a two-time world champion, Olympic champion and two-time Stanley Cup winner. The most productive European in the history of the NHL, who won more than ten individual trophies in the Canadian-American competition, is currently still playing for the extra-league Kladno. He also owns the parent club.
Photo: Jan Handrejch, Sport.cz
Jaroslav Pouzar (left) in an archive picture
Pouzar, who will celebrate his 72nd birthday in January, is like Jagr a two-time world champion. He won the Stanley Cup three times when he was part of Edmonton’s star line-up in the 1980s, along with Wayne Gretzky, for example.
Sixty-three-year-old Liba is a legend of Slovak hockey, but he only played for the Czechoslovak national team. He is also a world champion and, like Pouzar, he also competed with Jágr at the Olympic Games. But he only played one season in the NHL.
Czech hockey has so far 24 representatives in the IIHF Hall of Fame. Olympic winners from Nagano, Dominik Hašek and Robert Reichel, were the last to enter it in 2015 during the last championship on Czech territory.
2024-01-16 02:45:44
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