Why am I doing this? There are a lot of answers to that. First of all, I love it. Then, if I’m not gonna play hockey, I will still have to do something else, and then if I start doing something else, I have to start from the very bottom and learn, so why not do something that I know how to do?

And this is a great job. First of all, I don’t think it’s as hard as other jobs. You don’t have to wake up at 6 a.m. and go home at 5 p.m. like my parents did. You can really enjoy it. If you do something great, a lot of people know about it. Or it could work the other way, too—if you do something bad, a lot of people know about it, but it’s up to you. You make a lot of money.

But I think the important thing is I don’t know how long I’m going to live. The time between when I quit hockey and I die, I want it to be the shortest. It’s not going to be as exciting, that time. So as long as I can play, that’s what I’m doing. If I can play ’til I die, that’s what I will do. What else are you gonna do? Even if you retire, you will still have to go work out, and maybe harder than you do when you play hockey because you don’t want to look ugly and fat. At least I don’t want to.

That's Jaromir Jagr in the Big Read at Sportsnet from Kristina Rutherford, Ryan Dixon and Gare Joyce. Great and long article.