The first family of American hockey called Canada home.
Quinn and Jack Hughes, born 19 months apart in Florida, followed the path of their father’s coaching career. Jim was an assistant with the Orlando Solar Bears and the Boston Bruins, then joined New Hampshire’s Manchester Monarchs in 2003, when his youngest son, Luke, was born.
In 2006, the family crossed the border, settling in the Lorne Park neighborhood of Mississauga, Ontario, after Jim was hired as an assistant for the Maple Leafs’ AHL affiliate, later becoming Toronto’s director of player development.
The family remained there for nearly a decade. It was home, longer than anywhere else. Where they made friends. Where they scored goals. Where they kissed girls.
The brothers felt like they owned the streets of Ontario, the site of so many of their hockey games. They lived at Wedgewood Park, turning ice-covered tennis courts into an outdoor rink. They soaked up every second at Scotiabank Arena, given access to the Maple Leafs locker room.
Luke Hughes (l.) and Jack Hughes (r.) celebrate after Team USA won the gold medal Feb. 22. REUTERS
It is where three young boys watched Team USA face Canada in the 2010 gold medal game with several friends at a restaurant in their local hockey facility. Canada was less than 25 seconds from gold, leading 2-1 in Vancouver, when Zach Parise quieted the country with the game-tying goal.
“I think our boys jumped up in jubilation and all of a sudden caught themselves like, ‘Oh my gosh,’ ” Jim Hughes told NHL.com last month. “They probably looked around the room and there were a lot of people staring at them.
“It was one of those funny moments of cheering for the red, white and blue, and forgetting about their whereabouts.”
They were reminded when Sidney Crosby scored the golden goal, extending an American gold medal drought that hit 46 years when Quinn and Jack arrived in Milan this month.
Team USA, 16 years removed from their most recent Olympic medal, was on the verge of finishing off the podium again until Quinn — who finished the tournament with a team-high eight points — scored the overtime winner to defeat Sweden in the quarterfinals.
Then came Jack — who left the Olympics with a team-high four goals — losing teeth to a high-stick near the end of the gold medal game, then scoring one of the most iconic goals in the history of American sports to clinch a 2-1 overtime win over Canada.
Jim jumped up and down in the stands, hugging everyone in sight. His wife, Ellen, wore the face of most Americans, frozen with shock and ecstasy, only days after she celebrated gold — as a player development consultant — following the women’s hockey team’s win over Canada.
Jack Hughes celebrates after scoring the game-winning goal in the gold-medal game Feb. 22. Getty Images
The first family of American hockey had conquered the world.
“Their confidence, their need to compete, to want the puck in key moments, they practiced like that their entire lives,” Dan Ninkovich, a development coach who spent years working with the family, told The Post. “When I watch their games, I just yell at the screen:
‘Give them the puck and let them dance.’
Jack is now headed back to New Jersey, rejoining Luke — who is currently on long-term injured reserve — before Wednesday’s game in Newark. Quinn will take the ice Thursday with the Minnesota Wild.
They are the only three American brothers ever selected in the first round of the NHL draft, the covermates of “NHL 25” (video game), the owners of contracts worth more than $174 million combined.
Hockey has given them everything.
Luke, Quinn and Jack Hughes are pictured Jan. 12. NHLI via Getty Images
“Jim and I met through hockey,” Ellen told NBC in 2019. “We both love the game and think it’s the greatest game in the world. And we’re lucky that all three of them found their passion for it.”
Jim grew up a Yankees fan on Long Island (Hicksville), raised by a father, Marty, who spent three decades as a member of the New York City Fire Department. Jim became a star defenseman and captain at Providence College, briefly playing in the minor leagues before beginning his coaching career at his alma mater in 1992.
Ellen Weinberg, who played mixed-gender hockey as a kid in Texas, earned a soccer scholarship from New Hampshire. After also walking onto the school’s standout hockey team, she was inducted into the university’s Hall of Fame (she also made the lacrosse team despite never having played the sport). She won a silver medal at the IIHF Women’s World Championships in 1992, but a knee injury forced her to retire before women’s hockey debuted at the Olympics.
Ellen — who joined Team USA in 2023 alongside a head coach (John Wroblewski) who guided each of her sons with the U.S. National Team Development Program — turned to broadcasting, covering events like the Olympics and Frozen Four, but left her TV gig in 2009 to focus full-time on three young boys.
“They have a family-first mentality,” Ninkovich said. “Jim and Ellen are great humans and always take care of the people around them. They lead by example. Their house is always full of people and life and the boys took after them.
Quinn Hughes (43) and Jack Hughes are pictured during the Wild-Devils game Jan. 12. NHLI via Getty Images
“They are the All-American family.”
At 1, Jack needed a weekly babysitter, so Ellen could take her 2-year-old, Quinn, on the ice. At 4, Jack routinely skated on a frozen baseball field with his father, outside the classroom window of a jealous and distracted Quinn, whose family convinced the school to allow the eldest brother to join during lunch.
“We didn’t have a ton of money, and so we did what we knew, and all I knew was sports,” Ellen told The Athletic earlier this month. “I knew how to get out and play tackle with them. I knew how to run around the field. I knew how to go skate with them. There was no grandiose plan, but that’s what Jimmy and I knew. We loved sports. They were always around sports. And I think just having three kids so close in age, because we were moved around a bit, they became best of friends. But we had no big plan. It was just like, ‘OK, can we just play nice?’”
Usually.
There was the time that a 3-year-old Jack was checked by his big brother into the makeshift boards in their basement, opening a skull-length gash that required stitches. Years later, Quinn and Jack dropped their gloves, ending with the latter’s braces ripped from his face.
They played with pucks into darkness on frozen ponds, scarfing down pizza and hot chocolate on the rides home, then added more dents to their basement walls.
“We were always competitive, but we always wanted the best for each other,” Jack told The Post in 2023. “We were each other’s biggest fans, all three of us. And of course there’s sibling rivalry within the house, within the walls, but once we get outside the house it’s all love and we’re all rooting for each other, want[ing] each other to have the most success we can have, and everyone has each other’s back.”
John Tavares starred for the Toronto Marlboros. Connor McDavid raised the bar at the formidable youth power.
Then came Quinn, Jack and Luke.
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“The Greater Toronto Hockey League is very competitive and it played a big role in their upbringing,” Ninkovich said. “There was lots of scrutiny and pressure to prepare them for the next stage. It’s not for everyone, but they thrived in the pressure cooker in Toronto.”
The brothers — who moved to Michigan in high school — picked up a playbook to their future when the Maple Leafs’ 2014 first-round pick, William Nylander, moved in with the family.
They learned the importance of Team USA’s greatest glory while tagging along with their father to Lake Placid for national team development camps, already fluent in lessons their peers weren’t privy to.
“The things he was telling 20-year-old prospects, he was telling to us when we were 12,” Jack told ESPN in 2018. “Whenever we got the chance to watch a game with my dad, it was like watching video with an NHL coach.”
Quinn, 26, attended Michigan, then was selected by the Canucks with the No. 7 pick of the 2018 NHL Draft. In Vancouver, he became a two-time All-Star and the Norris Trophy winner in 2024 before joining Minnesota in a blockbuster trade in December. The defenseman has 64 goals and 402 assists in 485 career games.
Jack Hughes (l.) and Quinn Hughes (r.) are pictured Feb. 22. AFP via Getty Images
Jack, 24, was selected first overall by the Devils in 2019, scoring his first goal against Quinn and the Canucks later that year, with his father and grandfather in attendance. The oft-injured center and three-time All-Star reached 100 goals faster than any player in Devils history, having posted 153 goals and 234 assists in 404 career games.
Luke, 22, who also attended Michigan, joined Jack in New Jersey after being taken with the fourth overall pick in the 2021. The defenseman has 22 goals and 97 assists in 204 career games, having appeared in two postseasons with his brother.
The first “Hughes Bowl” took place on Dec. 5, 2023, when they became the second American family to have at least three brothers appear in the same NHL game. Just over a month ago, the three brothers — who live together in the offseason in a lakeside home in Michigan — shared the ice for the third time as pros.
“We always dreamed of playing in the Show with each other, but at the same time, it’s such an unrealistic goal,” Jack told The Post in 2023. “For even one of the three of us to make the NHL, the odds are so low. … It’s pretty ridiculous how it worked out.”
They are eternally golden — the first family of American hockey.
“My parents always told us how lucky we are to have each other,” Quinn said before his first NHL game against Jack in 2019. “You don’t really get that as a kid. … Looking back, I understand how lucky I was to have two brothers play hockey and love it as much as I do.”
