Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinordi
Petr Nedved laughed when Jagr was taken after him and said "that guy is alot better than me."
|
Yeah, but there was a lot going on there. Czechoslovakia was fresh off of the Velvet Revolution and just held their first democratic election the same month Jagr was drafted. At the time, there were still some questions about how difficult it would be to get him over (if you recall, Nedved defected to Canada in junior).
As it turned out, freedom held out in Czechoslovakia and it wasn't an issue, but no one knew at the time. Jagr was still the highest drafted player from the Eastern Bloc (who didn't already defect) at the time which shows that teams were willing to risk it.
There is also the issue that scouting in that country was difficult right up until about this time, so it wasn't easy to view him or talk to him privately.