Olympic Hero Connor Hellebuyck Is As Obsessed With Bass Fishing As He Is With Stopping Pucks
Team USA's goalie repped his Michigan roots and his love for bass fishing during the gold medal win over Canada.
Connor Hellebuyck played the game of his life on Sunday.
The Winnipeg Jets goalie recorded a whopping 41 saves and held Team Canada to just one goal en route to Team USA's gold medal win at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina. With that sort of domination, it's only appropriate that Hellebuyck rocked the most American facemask of all time.
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The custom-painted mask featured Team USA's shield on the chin and Stars and Stripes across the top. The right side pictured a swooping bald eagle, and the backplate showed off his home state of Michigan. But the best part — at least in the humble opinion of OutKick Outdoors — was the large-mouth bass plastered across the left side of Hellebuyck's bucket.
Hockey fans know this isn't new for Hellebuyck, as the facemask he wears for the Jets also features fish. But in case you didn't know, now you know: Connor Hellebuyck lives for the lake.
It started when he was a kid in Michigan, "dropping worms" and catching bass with his grandpa. Once he got to Winnipeg, he picked up ice fishing, too.
"There’s always that void of winter months and not being able to fish and always thinking about it and talking about it. [Former Jets teammate] Dustin Byfuglien started getting into ice fishing, and he was trying to get me into it and was telling me how awesome it is and how good Lake Winnipeg is," Hellebuyck told Major League Fishing in a 2020 interview.
"So, finally, I decided to go with him, and when I went with him, I enjoyed myself a ton. We caught some really big walleye — I think I caught a 29-incher that day — and from there I was hooked."
A love for fishing runs in the Hellebuyck family.
Connor's brother, Chris, is a competitive Bassmaster angler, and Connor said he "absolutely" wants to try his hand on the competitive circuit as well — once he's done with hockey, of course.
"We do little tournaments around here called Cash for Bass, so we have a blast in that," Connor said of fishing with his brother. "He’s trying to climb the ranks, and once I have more time and I’ll be able to, I think I’ll try to follow in his footsteps."
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For now, though, Connor is still very much a hockey player. And his talents were on display for the whole world to see on Sunday.
"It's going to go down as one of the best performances of all time — it has to," Matthew Tkachuk said of Hellebuyck after the gold medal game. "Right up there with Jimmy Craig [in 1980], all the great United States goaltenders. In the NHL, whatever type of hockey, whatever goaltending performance you want to talk about, that's right up there."
Dylan Larkin added: "That guy should never buy a drink in the state of Michigan ever again."
Safe to say he probably won't.
Hellebuyck and the Jets are back to work Wednesday when they travel to Vancouver to take on the Canucks. Once the season's over, though, you can find the 32-year-old relaxing with a rod and reel by a lake in northern Michigan. He's certainly earned it.
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