Jack Hughes
Jack Hughes · Sports
First Jewish player drafted first overall in the NHL (2019); scored the overtime goal that won the United States the 2026 Olympic gold medal in men's ice hockey
14 May 2001, Orlando, Florida, United States
Orlando · Toronto · New Jersey · Milan
Jack Hughes is recognized among Jewish contributors to Sports — First Jewish player drafted first overall in the NHL (2019); scored the overtime goal that won the United States the 2026 Olympic gold medal in men's ice hockey
Origins and early life
Jack Rowden Hughes was born in Orlando, Florida, on 14 May 2001 into a hockey family, the son of Jim Hughes, a former Providence College player who became a coach, and of Ellen Weinberg-Hughes, who won silver with the United States at the 1992 women's world championship, and he grew up in Toronto. He is the son of a Jewish mother and a Catholic father; the family kept Passover when the boys were small, and Jack had a bar mitzvah, although he went to a Catholic high school.
Work and career
As a teenager he moved to Michigan to play for the United States national development programme, and on 21 June 2019 the New Jersey Devils chose him first overall in the NHL draft, the first Jewish player ever taken with the first pick. His first NHL goal came that October against the Vancouver Canucks, the team of his older brother Quinn, and he was picked for the All-Star Game in 2022, 2023 and 2024. In the 2022–23 season he scored 43 goals and 99 points, a Devils record for a single season, and the ninety-ninth was an assist on the first NHL goal of his younger brother Luke, who had just joined the team.
Recognition
At the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, on 22 February 2026, he scored in overtime of the final against Canada for a 2–1 win that gave the United States its first Olympic gold medal in men's hockey since 1980. He had played on through the third period after a high stick to the mouth knocked out several of his teeth, and it was Quinn who had set up the opening goal of that final. Away from the rink, he and Luke launched Hughes Brothers Pucks & Pages, a reading programme meant to encourage literacy among children in New Jersey.
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Source: Wikipedia — Jack Hughes
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First Jewish player drafted first overall in the NHL (2019); scored the overtime goal that won the United States the 2026 Olympic gold medal in men's ice hockey
Source: Wikipedia — Jack Hughes
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