The Kladno Konnection

Jaromir Jagr doesn’t remember posing for the photo. It was 17 years ago, when he was 22 and already one of the best hockey players in the world. The NHL was in the midst of a work stoppage at the time, and Jagr, then with the Pittsburgh Penguins, had returned to his hometown of Kladno, Czech Republic, where adoring fans greeted him. How many photos did Jagr take with those admirers back then? How many hands did he shake? How many kids did he meet who dreamed that they were No. 68?

But what was trivial to Jagr became a talisman to the other person who appears in the picture: a then-5-year-old who also grew up in Kladno, an industrial town of around 70,000 about 17 miles west of Prague. The picture was taken at Zimní stadion, an arena with a capacity of 8,600 opened in 1949. It was snapped after a practice of HC Kladno, the local hockey team Jagr was skating with that day. The kid was still learning how to skate; in the photo he's holding a hockey stick and standing next to Jagr, the man many considered to be the best player in the NHL at the time. The kid, who's now 22, doesn't remember if he spoke to Jagr that day, but he has held onto the evidence of their encounter as if it were a precious relic.

That's probably not surprising, given how much Jagr meant to the kids of Kladno. Jagr is so revered in his hometown, in fact, that Winnipeg Jets goalie Ondrej Pavelec, a 24-year-old who also grew up in Kladno, remembers just seeing the picture during his childhood.

There's a difference, though, between the kid in the photo and almost everybody else who grew up idolizing Jagr - the ones who witnessed him earn millions and grow into a player rich enough to purchase the hometown hockey club. The difference is that kid is Jakub Voracek. And today, the 22-year-old is living out a dream, one that's akin to a kid from Philly somehow joining an NBA roster alongside Allen Iverson. It's not just that the fourth-year NHLer is one of the key pieces in the Flyers' youth movement. It's that in the wood-paneled dressing room of the Flyers' practice facility in Voorhees, he sits three lockers down from where Jagr hangs his skates each morning.