Veteran goaltender appears to announce his retirement.

All signs point to him retiring.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 7 years ago
Veteran goaltender appears to announce his retirement.
Keystone Press.

While he hasn't officially made any kind of announcement, it certainly sounds that based on his comments veteran goaltender Jason Labarbera is retiring from professional hockey.

While he believes that he has more to offer, and in fact is still in the shape required to perform at the pro level, Labarbera says that after several offseason surgeries and taking time to think about his family life, he made the decision not to continue playing.

Just the thought of recovering (from surgery), finding another job, moving my family or, doing what we’ve done in the past few years — me leaving and them staying,” LaBarbera said as per the Calgary Herald. “It wasn’t really an option. We’d done it for two years and I just can’t do it again.

“I could still play if I wanted to. I’m sure there’s lots of places and Europe that would take me. But, at the same time, I didn’t want to uproot my family.”

Labarbera didn't wait long to next the step in his hockey career either, with the Calgary Hitmen officially announcing today that he would be taking over as their goaltending coach.

The official announcement:

The Calgary Hitmen Hockey Club today announced the hiring of Jason LaBarbera as goaltending coach. 

The 36-year-old LaBarbera joins the Hitmen after spending 16 seasons as a professional goalie including parts of 12 seasons in the National Hockey League with the New York Rangers, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Phoenix, Edmonton and Anaheim.  During his NHL career he won 62 games, posting a 2.85 goals against average and a .907 save percentage while making 4,476 saves.

We wish him all the best on his future endeavors.

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