The Philadelphia Flyers had just shut out the New Jersey Devils on a Saturday night when Philadelphia GM Paul Holmgren spotted Jaromir Jagr in a room across from the locker room. The 39-year-old was doing postgame sit-ups and push-ups, but that's not what impressed Holmgren. The impressive thing was that he had recruited a bunch of the younger players to join him.
When Holmgren signed Jagr to a one-year, $3.3 million deal this summer, he knew he was getting a world class talent. He didn't know he was getting this.
"That's an encouraging sign when you have a future Hall of Famer who has accomplished what he has accomplished in the league and he's doing extra," Holmgren said. "Plus he's recruiting young guys to do extra. I didn't know that part of him. You see him play, but some of the things you don't know about him off-ice and how hard he trains and how hard he prepares. I didn't know anything about that."
To read more about Jaromir Jagr's early impact on the Philadelphia Flyers, as well as other notes from around the NHL, sign up for ESPN Insider.
- Senior NHL writer for ESPN The Magazine
- Wrote for Atlanta Journal-Constitution
- Wrote for The Sporting News
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Craig Custance
Craig Custance joined ESPN in September 2011 as an NHL reporter for ESPN the Magazine, ESPN Insider and ESPN.com. A graduate of Michigan State University, he lived for nearly a decade in Georgia working for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution where he spent time covering the late Atlanta Thrashers. He was the only Thrashers beat writer to get the team to the playoffs.
From 2008-11 he was the national hockey writer for the Sporting News, writing regularly in print and online. A member of the PHWA, he's a proud voter for the major NHL awards and can occasionally defend his selections.
Like hockey, he left Atlanta to return north where he currently lives in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, with his wife Cassie and their three kids.
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