Last season, a documentary crew could be seen following Vancouver Canucks captain Quinn Hughes all around Rogers Arena.

Hughes is heavily featured in episode four of Amazon Prime Video’s FACEOFF: Inside the NHL docuseries, which is focused around the behind the scenes lives of three NHL captains. The episode follows Gabriel Landeskog, Jacob Trouba, and Quinn Hughes on and off the ice.

Here are eight observations from the Hughes portion of the episode.

Fans in Vancouver know already that Quinn Hughes watches a lot of hockey, but did you know that he watches so much hockey that he has two televisions in his home?

“I do think it’s really important to watch hockey, to see the league and know what’s going on.” Hughes said as he grabbed the remote for one of the two TVs set up side-by-side in his Vancouver apartment.

Rick Tocchet said that obsession with the sport went into why the Canucks selected him as the captain.

“Picking a captain, yeah, there’s risk,” said Tocchet. “But for me with Quinn, he’s a hockey nerd. He Probably watches hockey 24/7, and he wants to be the best. He’s striving for that every day when he comes to the rink. You wrap all that in and you go ‘man, this is our guy.'”

We had already heard this, but with the documentary, we got a chance to see Hughes “chef up”, as he called it.

“I went full health freak mode this year,” Hughes said as he grabbed a carton of eggs out of his fridge. “It’s not only the performance on the ice, but how you take care of yourself off the ice. I had to grow and mature and learn. I’m always going to lead by example. Being the captain of the team, I was obviously very honoured, but it also comes with a new sort of pressure. If we lost this year it was going to be because we didn’t have great leadership, so for me, I was very motivated to have a big time year and lead by example with my game on the ice, but I knew it would be really tough.”

“I call my dad before every game,” Hughes said while driving to the rink. “He usually gives us a 40 second little pump up.”

“I probably read 20 to 25 books this year, just because I felt at the start of the year that with becoming the captain, it just got a lot for me and, like, I just wanted to get off my phone,” said Hughes.

Some books on Hughes’s shelf:

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
The Best American Poetry
Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino
Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer
How to Win the World Cup: Secrets and Insights from International Football’s Top Managers by Chris Evans
The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle

“I am more on the quiet side,” said Hughes. “So my leadership is growing. I think at the start of the year, I didn’t want to come in and say like, ‘I’m the captain now, I’m the loudest voice in the room and whatever I say goes.’ But as the season’s gone on, I feel like I’m learning, and I can be speaking my mind in the room.”

“It’s a learning thing,” said Tocchet. “I know there’s moments where he said to me, ‘when do I go in when you leave and shut the room and tell the players it’s not good enough?’ I mean, I can help him, but I think it’ll just come to him. And I think throughout the year, we’ve kind of let them figure that out.”

Ahead of game 81 of the season against the Calgary Flames, Rick Tocchet made it clear he really wanted his team to capture the Pacific Division title with the Edmonton Oilers hot on their heels.

“Real quick here, let’s be grateful for this opportunity. We win this f****** game, we lock it down, we win the division. You guys worked your ass off for this. You guys deserve this. Let’s f****** knock the door down tonight.”

Not much to say about this one, it was just cool to see myself in the documentary, albeit for a brief time. Did I have any lines? No. But I was still in it front and centre(ish) dammit! Let me have this!

Fine, we won’t count this one as an actual observation.

Aside from calling his dad before every game, Hughes also talks to his brothers lots during the season.

“I use them as sounding boards, and I’m a sounding board for them as well,” Hughes said of brothers Jack and Luke, both of whom play for the New Jersey Devils. “I don’t think I could be the captain in a Canadian market at a young age if I didn’t have a really great support system, not only with my brothers, both my parents as well.

“We’re a little bit smaller guys, so I would say we really had to learn the game and think of it in you know, a cerebral way, and [learn] how to survive in the NHL as well. And I think we’ve done a really good job at that, and I think family has a lot to do with that.”

Following the Canucks’ elimination at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers in game seven of the Western Conference semi-final, Quinn Hughes asked his teammates if they thought they should do a salute to the home crowd at Rogers Arena.

They did just that as Hughes’ first season as Canucks captain officially came to a close.

“It was disappointing in the way we ended, but in all seriousness, it was a tremendous year for our team and city. We made some huge steps and progress that we can build on.”

FACEOFF: Inside the NHL, the docuseries produced by Box To Box and NHL Productions, will launch globally on Friday, Oct. 4 on Prime Video.