Amazon’s FACEOFF: Inside the NHL brought fans into the world of Vancouver’s star defenceman.
Amazon’s FACEOFF: Inside the NHL brought fans into the world of Vancouver’s star defenceman.
“How does my hair look?” Quinn Hughes asks off-camera as he prepares to face his documentary debut. His comment is met with a batch of chuckles before the screen shifts, launching viewers into daily calls to Dad, visits to Glory Juice Co., and a playoff trip to Nashville. This is part of Amazon’s newly-released documentary, FACEOFF: Inside the NHL, which follows some of the league’s best players and gives fans insight into their day-to-day lives. Hughes was one of episode four’s three starring skaters, the other two being Gabe Landeskog of the Colorado Avalanche and Jacob Trouba of the New York Rangers. Themed around the task of captaincy, this segment was littered with little tidbits about Hughes and his adjustment to becoming the youngest active captain in the NHL.
(Spoilers for FACEOFF: Inside the NHL ahead.)
This was Hughes’ first season as captain of the Vancouver Canucks. While it was expected that he’d need time to adjust to the position, possibly even facing a decline in offensive production because of it, Hughes shattered any apprehension by leading the team effectively and capping it off by winning the James Norris Trophy. He had his most offensively productive season in his career, scoring 17 goals and 75 assists in 82 games.
“I was obviously very honoured, but it also comes with a new sort of pressure,” Hughes says of his captaincy and how he approached the season. “I wanted to have a big time year and lead by example with how my game is on the ice.”
“Quinn’s a very dynamic defenceman who carries the play,” fellow NHL captain Landeskog says of the Canucks defenceman in the documentary. “You can’t expect anything from others unless you’re ready to do it yourself. It’s important to be that person for the team to look up to and be able to follow.”
The first shot of Hughes in this episode is of him walking down the street and into Glory Juice Co., a Vancouver-based classic. Earlier on in the season, he’d released a personalized juice blend with the company. From what we can see in the documentary, it appears he’s still keeping close ties with them. He’s captured conversing with fans in the store as well as snapping pictures as he’s passed by on the street.
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“So you’re a hockey fan this year, but you weren’t the last four years?” he asks with a laugh before signing a kid’s jersey.
FACEOFF shows us another side of the captain as it transports us inside his apartment, from which Rogers Arena can be seen from the windows. It’s a fitting reminder that regardless of what goes on in Hughes’ life, hockey will always be present in the background. As if calling attention to that very point, the defenceman pulls up one of the NHL’s games of the day and takes a seat in front of the TV.
“He’s a hockey nerd, Probably watches hockey 24/7,” Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet notes on Hughes and what led him to pick the defenceman as the team’s captain.
“I do think it’s really important to watch hockey,” Hughes adds. “To see the league and know what’s going on.”
While hockey evidently takes up a big chunk of the eldest Hughes brother’s life, the documentary shows audiences another side of him — the reader side. Situated on a shelf in his living space are titles such as James Patterson’s 1st to Die, Ken Follet’s A Place Called Freedom, and Nelson DeMille’s The Lion. His shelf encapsulates a wide variety of genres, including mystery novels, nonfiction about cinema, and even poetry. Hughes also mentions reading “20 to 25 this year,” making me, an English Major, realize that he reads more books than I do.
“I just wanted to get off my phone,” he said of his newfound hobby.
A man of many talents, Hughes can also be seen “chefing it up” in FACEOFF, as he prepares a quick meal in front of the camera. He explains that this development in cooking can be attributed to him going “full health freak mode this year.
“It’s not only the performance on the ice, but how you take care of yourself off the ice,” he explains as he cuts up some vegetables. “I had to grow and mature and learn, and I’m always gonna lead by example.”
In this short clip of Hughes in his Vancouver home, the discussion circulates from hockey to home life and escaping the rink, then comes right back to hockey. In a way, it’s symbolic of how the defenceman describes his life — it always comes back to hockey.
“He wants to be the best, and he’s striving for that every day he comes out to the rink,” Tocchet remarks about his captain.
“He always wanted to be the best player,” Canucks forward Elias Pettersson adds about his friend and teammate in the TV series. “I think now when he is the captain, a shift within him happened.”
