#anyways if jack went the ncaa route he would've worn 43 too probably. they are each others biggest fan and supporter

[sincerelymarner]

why the hugheses wear the numbers they do

a lot of people tend to be curious why the Hughes brothers wear 43 and 86, and I wanted to do a small dive into why.

So where does 43 come from? First we need to start with the number 6. Jack once said, "No. 6 is the family number. Everyone has worn it: uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers" and Luke has said he wore 6 because his brothers and dad wore it. And it seems that before they entered the NHL, it was their preferred number. With that background done with, let's move back to 43.

According to Quinn, the first of the brothers to wear No. 43, he chose it while he was playing for the U17 NTDP team; "Going into my U17 year, I was always had No. 6 so I didn’t really know what to pick (between 30 and 60) and there wasn’t much for me to go with so I just went with 43 and I liked it and just stuck with it." The next year, when he was on the U18 team he went back to 6. Then when he went to UMich a senior had No. 6, and as a frosh he wasn't going to ask him to switch, so he went back to 43, really liked it and feels like "that's [his] number now," and obviously kept it when he signed with the Canucks.

When Jack entered the program Quinn passed 43 onto him. Apparently, the night Jack was drafted by the Devils, he saw a No. 43 Devils jersey with his name on it. But he chose to wear No. 86 because similar to Quinn, 6 was already taken by a senior member of the team. In this case that member was Andy Greene, the then captain of the Devils. Something that a lot of people like to point out is that 86 is a double of 43 and believe that's why Jack chose 86. In this article, Jack says he chose 86 because he previously wore it when he was with the Marlboros.

Luke, like his brothers before did, wore 43 while on the U17 team, 6 while on the U18 team, and 43 while he was at UMich. In his words, "I always wore #6 because my brothers and my dad wore it and then #43 because both my brothers came through the program and wore it."

So there you have it, that's why the Hugheses wear 43 and 86.

As an aside, contrary to popular belief, the number 43 did not come from their mom, Ellen. As for what number Ellen wore, I could only find that she had No. 5 while she played in the 1992 IIHF Women's World Championships, 21 while she was with UNH and 22 when she played as a kid in Dallas.