Jaromir Jagr’s Emmy win caps big week for hockey legend

PITTSBURGH — Jaromir Jagr can’t stop making surprising news.

A few days after appearing to subtly announce his impending retirement from professional hockey, he won a Mid-Atlantic Regional Emmy for the program “Celebrate 68: Jagr Retirement Ceremony,” for which he was credited as a producer/writer.

Jagr was credited as part of a 12-person Pittsburgh Penguins team that won in the Live Sports Program category Saturday night.

The program aired on SportsNet Pittsburgh and chronicled the retirement of Jagr’s No. 68 at PPG Paints Arena in February. Jagr, who spent his first 11 and most famous NHL seasons with the Penguins, had a homecoming of sorts for the event, as he and the team had had a somewhat strained relationship for the previous two decades.

“Jagr wins an Emmy,” said Penguins president Kevin Acklin on Sunday. “You can’t write this stuff.”

Acklin played a pivotal role in helping reunite Jagr with the Penguins, as did Jagr’s former teammates, current team broadcaster Phil Bourque and retired longtime vice president of communications Tom McMillan.

It was McMillan who first raised the issue of retiring Jagr’s number with former majority co-owner Mario Lemieux last decade. He later asked Bourque to make the case to Jagr during Bourque’s trip with his wife…