Jagr Provides Czechs Number of Possibilities

For Jaromir Jagr of the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Czech Republic, seven was his lucky number.

When he played for his homeland Friday against Finland, that was his seventh appearance with the national team but only the first time the Czechs won with him in the lineup. They opened the Olympic tournament with a solid 3-0 victory over Finland, but Jagr didn’t claim any credit, even though he had an assist.

“We had Dominik Hasek in net, that was our strongest point,” Jagr said of the Buffalo Sabre goalie, who won the NHL’s most-valuable-player award last season. “We didn’t let [Teemu] Selanne and [Saku] Koivu skate with the puck. We tried to come at them right away.”

Jagr, who turned 26 on Sunday, said he’d like to celebrate his birthday with a few more victories. He also said that although he wears No. 68 in Pittsburgh to commemorate the 1968 invasion of then-Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union, the breakup of the old Soviet Union means Monday’s Czech-Russia hockey game has no special emotional resonance.

“Not anymore,” he said. “It’s always nice to beat the Russians, though.”

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While much is being made of the U.S.-Canada hockey game Monday and the teams’ fierce rivalry, U.S. and St. Louis Blue right wing Brett Hull urged media and fans to take things a bit less seriously.

“It’s a game we’re playing,” he said. “We’ve got a friend back in St. Louis, Doug Wickenheiser, who’s fighting cancer. That kind of puts everything into perspective.”

Wickenheiser, a former first-round NHL draft pick who finished his career with the Blues, has been battling a rare form of cancer. The Blues wear an emblem on their uniforms in his honor.