It’s been an amazing week to be a hockey fan in the United States. The men’s national team won their first gold medal since 1980 and the women’s national team won gold themselves a few days earlier. U.S. Hockey goes 2-2 in Olympic hockey events, as Canada won silver as runners up in both.
That 1980 hockey team is better known as the “miracle on ice” team that beat the Soviet Union. Before Sunday’s gold medal game and in the victorious aftermath many hockey fans made the film adaption “Miracle” appointment viewing. That’s when some eagle eyed viewers picked up on an extremely interesting tidbit.
There’s a scene in the movie that dramatizes the cuts the coaching staff had to make. Coach Herb Brooks was a victim of team roster cuts from the gold medal winning 1960 Olympic team. In the movie, Brooks delivers to sad news to Ralph Cox in his office as the final roster cut in a memorable scene. In the montage leading up to that the coaching staff is seen crossing names off from a list. One of those names was “Jack Hughes”.
Back during the 2022 NHL there was a minor story about another “Jack Hughes” being taken in the second round by the Los Angeles Kings (his father is current Montreal Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes). The more famous Jack Hughes was taken first overall by the New Jersey Devils cemented himself into hockey history by scoring the game winning goal in overtime to give the United States gold. There was another Jack Hughes trying out for that 1980 team, one you probably never hear about.
This Hughes, whose real name was Jon Francis Hughes, was a right handed shot defenseman from Harvard University from 1976-1979. He was All ECAC first team for the 1976-1977 season and All ECAC second team for the 1977-1978 season. He would be chosen in the 9th round of the NHL draft by the Colorado Rockies. He was officially a member of the United States national team and would play in 49 national team games from 1979-1980. In those 49 games he would score three goals and fifteen assists for 18 points to go along with 62 penalty minutes.
Ready for a coincidence? That same Rockies team would later relocate to become the New Jersey Devils. Ready for another coincidence? He spent most of his time in the minor leagues, but did play parts of two seasons with the Rockies. Those two seasons give him 86 games of NHL experience. Where have we seen that number before? The United States won gold on Sunday 46 years to the day of that 1980 championship.
The Hughes of the 1980’s retired after the 1981-1982 season. He seemingly has no relation to our current Jack Hughes. This wasn’t the 1980 team, so we won’t call it a “miracle”, but it was a very cool coincidence.