Former Penguins star Jagr gets huge honor from IIHF

This article originally appeared on PittsburghHockeyNOW.com.

While most Pittsburgh Penguins fans were sleeping in the wee hours Sunday morning, former star winger Jaromir Jagr was receiving a huge honor in his homeland.

Jagr was inducted into the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame in Prague in a ceremony held before the IIHF World Championship final between Czechia and Switzerland.

“I’m honored to be here. It’s a huge honor for me to be inducted into the Hall of Fame,” said Jagr, who was one of eight men and women inducted Sunday. He made his acceptance speech in English.

The first person Jagr thanked was a former Penguins coach, the late Ivan Hlinka, who was Czech.

“He said, ‘If you want to be great, you have to know the history of your game.’ I remember that very well,” Jagr said. He said he believed that meant young players needed to have idols, and he listed former Penguins teammates Mario Lemieux, Ron Francis and Paul Coffey, as being among his several idols and remembers watching Lemieux and Coffey in the 1987 Canada Cup.

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