USA Men's Hockey Team Carries Jack Hughes Through Olympic Village After Golden Goal

The Orlando native is the man of the hour.

Jack Hughes provided one of the Milan Cortina Games’ most enduring moments Sunday with his golden goal. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

When he woke up in Italy on Sunday, United States center Jack Hughes was just a New Jersey Devil. By the end of the day, his life had changed forever.

At 1:41 of overtime in a tied Olympic men’s hockey final between the Americans and Canada, Hughes fired in a goal to give the United States its first gold medal in the event since 1980 in Lake Placid, N.Y. Hughes’s clutch shot came four days after his brother, Quinn, scored in overtime to lift the Americans past Sweden in the quarterfinals.

Jack—along with goalie Connor Hellebuyck—was the man of the hour Sunday, and was treated accordingly. In the hours after the victory, Team USA posted to Instagram a video of the men’s hockey squad jubilantly carrying the Orlando native through the Olympic Village in Milan.

Both the American men's and women’s ice hockey squads won gold in Milan, which is the first time that has happened since the introduction of Olympic women’s hockey in Nagano, Japan, in 1998.

Come 2030 in the French Alps, the United States men will be in the unfamiliar position of defending an Olympic men’s ice hockey title—something they haven’t had to do since Sarajevo in 1984.

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