There is much I could write about men’s hockey. If you want to know the character of a man, all you have to do is wait for him to tell you who he truly is. Jack Hughes (of the New Jersey Devils and also of the Gold Winning US Men’s Olympic hockey team) has been voicing his displeasure that he did not get to keep his game winning puck from the gold medal game. And while he’s since attempted to backtrack, his first statement was the truth.
Within the NHL, players get to keep milestone pucks. It’s an understood agreement – and often hockey players will build displays to honor those pucks. For the Olympics, however. The Olympics standards for hockey belong to the IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation) – who set the standards for ice size, rules, etc. The IOF and the IIHF have an agreement – the IIHF gets all game winning pucks. And the IIHF donated them to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto to be displayed. Currently, Jack Hughes’s game winning puck is displayed alongside Meghan Keller’s.
Hughes is not happy about this. He feels that he should have the puck, so that his father can put it with the collection of memorabilia he curates.
Hughes vs Crosby
And this is an absolutely spoiled attitude. Sidney Crosby’s golden goal from Vancouver is in the Hockey Hall of Fame, and he considers it an honor to be part of history. Because, unlike some players, he understands the role that the Olympics play in the broader history of the sport – in motivating young people to take up the sport.
Hughes would rather hoard the puck for his own collection, rather than let it become a part of history that everyone else can experience. And that is how you judge what kind of a man someone truly is – because at the end of the day, his accolades during the Olympics are for the US Hockey team, not himself.
He backtracks
He’s attempted a backtrack, saying that it’s an honor, BUT. I don’t think I need to elaborate beyond that. Because Hughes realized that it wasn’t just a quiet few who disagreed with him, but greats of the sport. It was nearly every media outlet that had been praising him last month. People were calling him a poor role model.
And he saw his future drying up.
Make no mistake. That first statement of his was the truth. And that’s what Jack Hughes is terrified you’ll realize.