Meet US hockey player Jack Hughes, who scored the golden goal at the Winter Olympics

Hughes’ missing front teeth barely seem to have dampened his mood. “I looked on the ice and saw my teeth like, ‘Here we go again’,” the forward joked to the media at the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena. “I’m from the best country in the world. We’ve got great dentists there, too. So I’m lucky I’m American, and they’re gonna fix me right up.”

The athlete went on to celebrate his team’s victory on Instagram with a post featuring a photo of him and his stylish new tooth gap alongside his team. “I love my country,” he wrote in the caption, adding US flag emojis.

Here’s everything you need to know about Jack Hughes.

He grew up in an athletic family

Jack Hughes was born in May 2001 in Orlando, Florida. His father, Jim, played hockey and later became a coach. His mother, Ellen, grew up playing football and lacrosse, and later collegiate ice hockey at the University of New Hampshire, winning a silver medal on the USA squad at the 1992 Women’s World Championship.

Jack learned to skate while he was around two years old and started playing organised hockey at the age of five.

In 2006, the family relocated to Toronto, Canada, where Jim worked as an assistant for the Maple Leafs’ AHL team. It was there that Jack and his older brother Quinn really started getting into hockey. They would spend hours playing hockey in the basement of their family home, per NHL’s website. Their younger brother, Luke, also plays the sport.

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