On March 29, Taix as we know it closes forever. The iconic French restaurant originally opened downtown in 1927 and relocated to its current chalet on Sunset Boulevard in 1962. It’s a grim reminder of L.A.’s insatiable appetite to destroy its own heritage and especially devastating to a certain milieu of writers and artists, myself very much included. Since it announced its closure, I’ve been visiting as often as I can to say farewell, not only to the charmingly shabby faux-1920s interiors, but to the many lives I’ve lived at its tables. First as a young guitarist when a bandmate worked the bar’s soundboard, next with the Chinatown artist scene, then with Semiotext(e)’s avant-garde lit circle, later through firecracker romances and heartbreaks during the art party Social Club, recently floating through the louche carnival of Gay Guy Night and now with the circus of beatniks from my reading series Casual Encountersz.
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It’s difficult to explain why this cavernous and windowless restaurant means so much, so I’ve tried to list everything I love about Taix.
I love that they don’t play music. I love the 1960s bathrooms. I love the bottomless tureens of soup. I love the complimentary crudité from the pre-pandemic era. I love the cold pats of butter. I love that you can always get a table, no matter how many people roll in. I love the free refills on Diet Cokes. I love the 80-year-old couples on dates. I love how the dim lighting makes everyone seem chic. I love the frayed carpeting. I love the fake votive candles. I love the icy martinis. I love the corner booth beside the fireplace. I love the smoked mirrors and tin-plate ceilings in the elegant back dining rooms. I love the small fortune I’ve spent there picking up the check for many strippers, poets and bohemians. I love its rundown glamour, which miraculously evokes Old Hollywood, Belle Époque and trashy Americana all at once. I unironically love the food, which isn’t spectacular, but is very comforting. I love how a waitress once ran off with a friend of mine and slept on my couch for a week. I love how my wife generally hates eating at restaurants but loves eating at Taix. I love how every L.A. artist I know has their own singular version of this list.
The only thing I don’t love about Taix is that its owners are tearing it down to erect soulless condos. I know the city needs housing, but not like this. I hope we’ll all find a new place to call home again soon.
Taix shaped me as a writer and artist, along with so many others, which is why before the new owners demolish this cultural institution, I asked other creatives what the Echo Park landmark means to them.
Chris Kraus.
(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)
Chris Kraus, writer, artist and co-editor of the independent press Semiotext(e): When I moved to L.A. in 1995, Taix was the go-to place, with its deep banquettes, cuisine bonne-femme and its nightly prix-fixe specials. Mostly it was police officers and their wives who went there. Sylvère Lotringer and I went often, for him it was a little reprieve from the non-Frenchness of L.A. He could order in French and exchange pleasantries with an elderly French waiter who seemed to live there. Years later, when Sylvère moved to Ensenada and was less active with Semiotext(e), Taix was the site of our “Annual General Meetings” — Hedi El Kholti, Sylvère and I would have dinner together and Hedi would catch Sylvère up on all the forthcoming publications and projects. Taix was a place to run into people unexpectedly. About a decade ago, when the bar was refreshed, it changed again and I kind of lost track of it.
Rachel Kushner, novelist: I dined at Taix probably once per week for 23 years. It hurts so much that it is closing. I simply stopped going, so that I could begin to grieve, and also to avoid every last random tourist standing by the host station, on their phone, and the glum possibility of being seated in the second dining room, a.k.a “the Morgue” as my friend Benjamin Weissman put it. I want to protect my memories of the special occasions I enjoyed in this perennial special occasion establishment … I want to remember Bernard, a cheerful Basque from Biarritz who worked there 60 years, got progressively trashed over the course of his shift, went to Bakersfield on Sundays to party with his sheep-herding countrymen, came back Wednesdays sunburned and happy. The old valets who were let go during the pandemic. I used to give them a Christmas bonus every year, as a thanks for letting me park my classic out front. Look, I was born in Taix. I mean, in a way. I nursed my newborn in Taix. He grew up there. People who criticize the food are losers, and will never understand. The steak frites are great. The panna cotta, discontinued after the pandemic, was my favorite. The Louis Martini Cabernet was reliable. (Bernard told me the wine cellar downstairs took up the entire footprint of the main restaurant. Don’t know if that’s true.) Meanwhile, I can’t put my arm around a memory. All the smart girls know why. It doesn’t mean I didn’t try.
Cord Jefferson, writer and director: When I started going to Taix, in 2004, you could still gamble at the bar. They sold keno slips and lottery tickets, and whenever Powerball got over $100 million, I’d buy a ticket with my pint. Where else can you do all that while simultaneously watching a game and eating a tourte de volaille? Taix was where I watched the heroic Zinedine Zidane headbutt the gutless Marco Materazzi in the saddest World Cup final ever. When France lost that afternoon, my favorite server, Phillipe, cried. Phillipe’s teeth were often as wine-stained as his customers’. He’d bum me cigarettes in the parking lot and speak abusively about the ways the neighborhood was changing. I’m happy Phillipe is not around to see the digital renderings of what they plan to erect once they demolish the Taix chateau: another condo building with all the charm of a college dorm. It’s a damn shame what’s happening to Taix. I wish I had more money so I could buy it and keep it around, but I never won the Powerball.
John Tottenham, novelist and poet: It’s a shame that Taix is closing, not only because other plans will now have to be made for my funeral reception, but because it was the last civilized watering hole in the neighborhood. There isn’t anywhere else that one can walk into and immediately satisfy the social instinct among a convivial and refreshingly diverse clientele in what is becoming an increasingly homogenized locality. It has been the nexus of my social life for over 20 years, and is simply irreplaceable.
Jade Chang.
(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)
Jade Chang, novelist: I’d only known Taix as a raucous bardo of a French restaurant, then there was a memorial service for Alex Maslansky, my beloved friend Max’s brother, owner of Echo Park’s best bookstore, Stories. Alex was a beautiful and beleaguered soul, born worried, born romantic, difficult and hopeful and apparently a shockingly good poker player. The room was packed with music people and book people, sober friends and poker friends, packed with the gorgeous girls who’d always loved him, our collective sorrow potent and sweet enough to pull the walls in around us tight as we said goodbye and goodbye.
Alexis Okeowo, New Yorker staff writer: I was a late discoverer of Taix, stumbling upon it when I moved to a bungalow just above Sunset during the pandemic from New York. I seemed to only see writer friends there. I met up with a journalist for drinks and then ran into a new writer friend at the bar. I later had a big, spontaneous dinner with TV writer friends and then a birthday celebration in the dining rooms that ended in two friends escorting me home, sick and happy off a mostly-martini meal and the selfies I took in the bathroom with the iconic pink and gold wallpaper. Every time, there was talk about ideas and gossip and so, so much laughter.
Alberto Cuadros, writer/curator and co-founder of the Social Club: About 10 years ago, Max Martin and I started Social Club as a weekly social salon at Taix. We thought of it as a kind of Beuysian social sculpture, it was a weekly ritual, and over time it became something of an institution in the L.A. art world. Everyone knew where to go in L.A. on a Wednesday if they wanted to meet interesting people or find friends. I even met my wife there who was visiting from Montreal.
Siena Foster-Soltis, playwright: Taix felt like one of the few remnants of the L.A. I grew up in and love so dearly.
Ruby Zuckerman.
(Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)
Ruby Zuckerman, writer and co-founder of the reading series This Friday: Taix is the only restaurant in L.A. that doesn’t lose its mind if new friends drop in halfway through dinner or if you stay at your table for hours after you stopped ordering. That kind of flexibility leads to spontaneous nights where what started off as an intimate hang expands into an all-out party. As a writer, that flexibility has allowed me to meet editors, collaborators and readers, drawn together by pure fun rather than networking. One of my favorite nights involved getting in a physical altercation with novelist John Tottenham after he stole my phone to send prank texts to my boyfriend. I’ll miss taking selfies in the bathroom.
Blaine O’Neill, DJ and events organizer: I always say Taix is the “People’s Country Club.” It is exceptional because of the staff who understand the importance of hospitality, and the scale of the space is humane. You’re able to evade feeling pinched by the noose of transactional cosmopolitanism.
Tif Sigfrids, gallerist and publisher Umm…: Taix was a cultural nexus. A space with broad range. It went from being the dark bar I read books and day-drank at in my 20s to the place where I rented a private room to host my son’s first birthday party. It’s where I watched Barack Obama get elected twice, the Lakers win back-to-back championships, and where I indulged in countless night caps and an unreasonable amount of all-you-can-eat split pea soup. You never knew what kind of hot jock, wasted poet or other type of intrigue you might run into there. You can’t make a place like Taix up. It’s a place that just miraculously happens.
Kate Wolf, writer and editor: Though I have been going to Taix for nearly 20 years, embarrassingly, it was only in the last year that I realized the building wasn’t from the 1920s. Those smoke-stained mirrors, that tin ceiling, the drapery and light fixtures are in fact set-dressed — ersatz! Which of course only makes me love the place more. Taix’s history, and its spot in the city’s cultural firmament, cannot be denied. But what really makes it so special are the people who work there and the clientele, not its past. This point is perhaps my only hope in losing what is my favorite restaurant in Los Angeles. That by some divine grace, we will all find each other again in another spot, designed to a different decade than the horror-filled present, and fill it with the same warmth, the same bottomless soup bowl, the same cheer.
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Hedi El Kholti, the co-editor of Semiotext(e). (Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)
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Writers Lily Lady and Siena Soltis-Foster. (Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)
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Poet Meat Stevens (Steven Lesser). (Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)
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Sammy Loren, writer and curator of Casual Encountersz. (Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)
Hedi El Kholti, artist and co-editor Semiotext(e): Taix is where we would end up after every reading since 2004 when I started working at Semiotext(e). I have memories of being there with Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, Gary Indiana, Michael Silverblatt, Colm Tóibín, Rachel Kushner and Constance Debré among others … Taix has that particular anachronistic vibe that made L.A. so charming when I moved here in 1992, one of these places that time forgot. It was odd when it became really hip in the last 10 years. It made me think of what Warhol wrote about Schrafft’s restaurant when it had been redesigned to keep up with the fashion of the moment and had consequently lost its appeal. “If they could have kept their same look and style, and held on through the lean years when they weren’t in style, today they’d be the best thing around.”
Loren is the founding editor of the art and literary conceptual “tabloid” On the Rag and curator of the reading series Casual Encountersz.
On their way into the clubhouse Thursday, Dodgers players were greeted by the World Series championship trophies they won in 2024 and 2025. In center field, Dodgers fans were greeted by oversize replicas of those trophies, the better for taking a selfie.
On social media, the Dodgers unveiled their Opening Day hype video. These were the first words: “What’s wrong with being the bad guy?” At Dodger Stadium, the threepeat hype video was a movie trailer with this tag line: “Great sequels build legendary trilogies.”
To the rest of that country, all that winning and all that spending makes the Dodgers the bad guys. For more than a year, the owners of other major league teams have telegraphed their desire to restrain all that spending, preferably through a salary cap.
How does the owner of the Dodgers feel?
Does baseball truly have a problem?
Sit down, Dodgers fans. You might expect the owner of the Colorado Rockies to say that revenue disparity among teams is so great that competitive balance has been destroyed, and he did.
You might not expect Dodgers owner Mark Walter to say this:
”Here’s what the problem is: Money helps us win. We can’t win all the time. We’ve got to have some parity,” Walter told me.
“So we’ve got to come up with something that will give us some parity.”
Don’t take this the wrong way: Walter will always want to win. But the owners, Walter included, are increasingly united in the belief that revenue disparity is the primary explanation why a small-market team has not won the World Series in 11 years.
The Dodgers are making more money from Uniqlo in naming rights this season than some teams are making from local television rights and the Dodgers also are making 10 times as much on their SportsNet LA deal.
The Dodgers generated an estimated $850 million in revenue last season, according to Forbes. Their opening day opponent, the Arizona Diamondbacks, generated an estimated $324 million.
If Walter were to support the pursuit of a salary cap, the owners’ vote could be unanimous. For now, negotiations with the players’ union have not started. There is no formal owners’ proposal on the table, so there is nothing for Walter to approve or reject.
“We’ll have to see what it is,” Walter said.
The players’ union does not dispute the revenue disparity. The union believes the owners should solve that issue among themselves, by sharing more revenue and adding incentives for lower-revenue teams that win. The union also believes “competitive balance” is a fig leaf for “cost control that increases owner profits.”
In the NFL, which has a salary cap, either the Kansas City Chiefs or the New England Patriots has played in the AFC championship in each of the last 15 years.
And, even if the Dodgers are the bad guys, they are not bad for business. The Dodgers hold five of the top 12 spots on baseball’s list of best-selling jerseys: Shohei Ohtani at No. 1, Yoshinobu Yamamoto at No. 2, Mookie Betts at No. 5, Freddie Freeman at No. 7 and Kiké Hernandez at No. 12.
The last two World Series, in which the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays, juiced television ratings across the country and around the world. The World Baseball Classic dominated headlines and social media content at what is usually a sleepy time for baseball.
All of that momentum would be at risk if owners shut down the sport in “salary cap or bust” collective bargaining, crossing their fingers that players would surrender as soon as they started missing paychecks next spring.
It is against that backdrop that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts encouraged fans to appreciate this season opener. With potential armageddon looming in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, who knows when the next season might actually open?
“I understand that,” Roberts said Thursday, “in the sense of, this is where the CBA is at, as far as the expiration. And I do agree: Enjoy it, because nothing is guaranteed. It’s going to be a great year and I hope everyone pours their spirits and their joy into this season, because it’s going to be a great one. We’ll just figure out where it goes after that.”
And, if it goes haywire after that, the Dodgers inevitably will be blamed.
“That,” Roberts said with a laugh, “seems like it’s always been the case recently.”
What would Walter tell Dodgers fans concerned that what might be in the best interest of baseball might not be in the best interest of the Dodgers?
“I don’t want to hurt us,” Walter said. “We’ll be fine.”
The Major League Baseball Players Assn. is arguably the strongest union in the United States whose members include some of the most conservative athletes in professional sports. The owners of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams, who made their wealth through the workings of free enterprise capitalism, want to limit what players can be paid. This apparent political and philosophical irony will most likely lead to a shutdown of baseball at the end of this season.
Wednesday is opening day for the 162-game major league season. The 2025 season ended Nov. 1 with an 11-inning Dodgers victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in what was one of the most mesmerizing World Series ever. Last season, the Dodgers attracted more than 4 million fans for the first time. The Dodgers weren’t alone. More than 71 million fans attended major league games — the third straight season of growth. Over the last decade, league revenue has increased 33%.
And yet, despite all this good news about the health of baseball’s finances, team owners have threatened to lock the players out — essentially an ownership strike — at the end of this season over terms of a new collective bargaining agreement soon to be negotiated with the players union.
Major League Baseball, unlike the NFL, the NBA and the NHL, does not have a hard salary cap that limits what teams can spend on players. This is the key issue for the 30 team owners and Commissioner Rob Manfred, who argues that the system is “broken.” Small-market teams can’t effectively compete, Manfred insists, with economic behemoths like the Dodgers and Yankees. But over the past 10 seasons, 14 teams have made it to the World Series, so the league is not dominated by only a few big spenders.
Major leaguers and fans have weathered five player strikes and four owner lockouts since 1972. The 1994-95 strike lasted 232 days, canceling more than 900 games, including the World Series. Unlike in the NFL, where top players like San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana crossed a picket line during the 1987 NFL Players Assn. strike, unionized baseball players have remained united. So far, no star players have been strikebreakers in baseball. Both Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers — the 2025 Cy Young Award winners for their respective leagues — also serve in players union leadership roles.
A recent report analyzing major league ballplayers’ political affiliation found that among those who live in states that allow public access to voter registration records, nearly 54% of the players were Republicans compared with 8% Democrats. Why does a rightward-leaning membership retain such strong union loyalties?
For Miami Marlins pitcher Pete Fairbanks, who is also a member of the players union leadership, it comes down to recognizing that they stand on the shoulders of players who challenged the baseball establishment.
“If you look at the history of the union, we’ve had a foundation set for us,” Fairbanks said. “They fought for players’ rights and for the general betterment of the whole and it’s the job of the veteran players to pass that history on to the younger players.”
Marvin Miller, a former Steelworkers Union leader, revolutionized the players’ union and baseball when he led the association from 1966 to 1982. He told the New York Times in 1999 that he was “irked” that many players did not know that it was the union that made their enormous salaries and benefits, arbitration and free agency possible. “When you don’t know your history, you tend to relive it,” Miller said.
Miller, who died in 2012, was a labor history buff who realized that highly skilled workers often developed elaborate ethical codes that promoted solidarity with other employees.
Bruce Meyer, the current executive director of the players association, puts the union’s fractious history with the owners at the center of his communications with players. He spent weeks talking with union members during spring training in Florida and Arizona, emphasizing the importance of unity in the ranks. “The bottom line is that our players have always been of the view that they are fighting not just for themselves but for their teammates and for the players that come after them,” Meyer said.
Manfred’s strategy as commissioner of Major League Baseball has been to talk directly with the players himself, especially the lower-earning younger players who he claims are being shortchanged. He argues that “10% of our players make 72% of the money,” numbers that Meyer disputes.
The commissioner is essentially telling players that their union has engaged in malpractice, losing touch with its own members while the economics of baseball changed around them. Meyer regards Manfred’s attempt to divide players as “standard management-labor tactics.”
Top agent Scott Boras said that, unlike in the NFL, baseball’s open salary system works for players because “your talent allows you to earn what you can earn without taking money from anybody else’s pocket.”
Paradoxically, the union has embraced the principles of Adam Smith: Let the free market work. No one forced the Dodgers to pay Shohei Ohtani $700 million. Good for Ohtani, great for Dodger fans. And this year, the Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo will be a field sponsor at Dodger Stadium. The owners, who embrace team revenue sharing and luxury taxes and demand restrictions on salary competition, sound like socialists.
When labor-management disputes interrupt baseball, many fans undoubtedly feel like they are victims of a squabble between “millionaires and billionaires.” Ryan Long, a 26-year-old minor league pitcher in the Baltimore Orioles system and a union leader, thinks the players association should try to understand how regular working people feel about a potential lockout. “Whether it’s people selling hot dogs at stadiums or cleaning rooms at local hotels, the union should help in whatever way it can for other workers who may be hurt if baseball shuts down,” he said.
In late February at the Yankees spring training field in Tampa, I spoke with season ticket holder Richard Barnitt, who wore a shirt designed like a baseball, looking like he could be scuffed up and pitched. “There has to be some kind of cap because the Dodgers and the New York Mets had unlimited money,” he said. Another fan, Carlos Rodriquez, an airplane mechanic living in Tampa, disagreed. “I don’t think a salary cap would be fair to the players,” he said. “The players association does magical work for those guys.”
If locked out, the players are going to want support from fans, to whom a salary cap might sound reasonable. Owners will do what owners do: maximize profits and franchise values. The players union should find ways to show the fans they are not forgotten.
During a previous owners lockout, the association created a million-dollar fund to help pay the bills of stadium concession workers who were thrown out of work. They can do the same again, letting fans know that they understand that most Americans struggle paycheck to paycheck. And maybe Ohtani can chip in a couple hundred bucks — like former Dodger Mike Piazza did decades ago — for each home run.
Kelly Candaele produced the documentary “A League of Their Own,” about his mother’s years playing in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
Hours after Kevin Durant knocked him out of the top five on the NBA’s all-time scoring list , Jordan was all smiles as he walked to Victory Lane to greet Tyler Reddick after the driver’s win Sunday at Darlington Raceway.
Reddick — who drives for 23XI Racing, which is co-owned by Jordan and veteran driver Denny Hamlin — joined NASCAR Hall of Famers Dale Earnhardt and Bill Elliott as the only Cup Series drivers to win four of the first six races in a season.
To do so, Reddick had to overcome a malfunctioning battery and a large deficit in the final 50 laps. Afterward, Jordan jumped the track’s safety barrier to greet Reddick and his team with some hard high fives and enthusiastic cheers.
“I think the key to him winning was just keeping his head,” Jordan said after the race. “We just had to get the car right, and I think he did an unbelievable job. I just wanted everything to be good, because once he gets back out there, then I feel like his competitive juices are going to carry him all the way to the end. He earned it all week, and I’m real proud of the team.”
Earlier this year, Reddick became the first NASCAR driver to start the season with three consecutive wins. He stands atop Cup Series standings, leading second-place Ryan Blaney of Team Penske by 95 points. Reddick’s 23XI teammate Bubba Wallace is currently in third place.
One night earlier, Durant scored 27 points in the Houston Rockets’ 123-122 victory over the Miami Heat to overtake Jordan for fifth place on the NBA’s all-time leading scorer list. In his 18th season, Durant has 32,294 points — two more than Jordan, who played 13 seasons for the Chicago Bulls and two for the Washington Wizards. Durant and the Rockets play the Bulls in Chicago on Monday.
Jordan has yet to comment publicly on the matter, but Durant had plenty of praise for the man considered by many to be basketball’s GOAT on Saturday during his postgame news conference.
“I’ve been inspired by all of these players that I’m either coming close to or passing up, and MJ is in a world of his own,” Durant added. “He’s in a galaxy of his own as somebody that I look up to, respect and who basically shaped the game for me.”
Durant also pointed out that Jordan would have scored many more points had he not taken multiple seasons off during the span of his playing career.
“He left a few, I want to say, thousand or so points on the table, too, with the amount of games he missed,” Durant said. “… He scored points quickly, man. So he set the bar high, and it’s pretty cool to reach that bar.”
Alex Polizzi made a return to our TV screens and helped a family transform their budget bed and breakfast
Alex was quick to issue an ultimatum to hotel owners (Image: Channel 5)
The Hotel Inspector’s Alex Polizzi was quick to issue an ultimatum to some hotel owners as she spotted a big problem. During Thursday’s (March 19) episode of the Channel 5 hit show, Alex was in the sprawling commuter town of Horley, to check into Gatwick Turret.
The budget bed and breakfast is run by 62-year-old Ram, 61-year-old Anj and their 37-year-old son, Rai. The 10-bedroomed Victorian guest house is just a mile down the road from Gatwick Airport, where over 250,000 flights carry up to 46 million passengers every year.
It seems like a great location for a hotel as a lot of people will be needing somewhere to stay before or after their getaways. However there is a lot of competition as Gatwick Turret is one of over 100 hotels, including big chain brands, fiercely vying for their business.
As the hotel owners wrestle with high overheads in a highly competitive market, the family have no choice but to run the hotel almost single-handedly to keep staffing costs down.
And Rai has a lot on his hands as the running of the hotel has recently been passed down to him and it’s all on him to turn things around for Mum and Dad and find a way of making a profit.
Alex knew she had a lot to do to help transform the hotel as she found mismatched décor and too many running costs. And before she could even get stuck in she was quick to spot a problem as she discovered that despite their hard work, the business is barely breaking even and the family are struggling to pay themselves.
Alex asked: “Tell me about what it cost you to put on a room?” Rai explained: “Each room costs around £4.20 for the linen. The tea, coffee tray, a bottle of water…”
Before he could finish his sentence, Alex jumped in: “It’s expensive water. I wouldn’t put a very expensive bottle of water in the room. So what does it cost?” Rai continued: “£3.20.”
Alex explained: “Adding to cost per room are roughly £6 on housekeeping, £9 towards the £350,000 pound mortgage, £24 on utilities and taxes and £9 commission for those pesky online booking sites.”
She continued: “So, the grand total of that, my dears, is £56. Lucky lucky you, all this work and all this headache and you’re making a profit of about £4 a night per year – not quite enough for retirement.”
Alex admitted: “There is obviously a problem.” She then asked: “Do you pay yourselves? Rai revealed: “A £1,000 each.” It was clear Alex was stunned as she gasped: “A £1,000 each a month. Gosh darling, I mean, I’m surprised the government allows it, you’re not even making minimum wage.”
Alex gave the owners an ultimatum as she later added: “So we either need to make more money or sell it off.”
After an intense few days of renovations and small changes, Alex managed to help the family turn things around and business seems to be heading in the right direction as Rai revealed that they are now making an extra £140 a week with their breakfast room and they managed to get some positive press.
The puck that Hughes smacked into the net in overtime to give the United States its first men’s Olympic hockey gold since the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” was seemingly forgotten amid the raucous celebration.
But this week, the Hockey Hall of Fame began displaying that puck along with the one Megan Keller knocked into the net in overtime to give the U.S. women’s team gold in Milan. The International Ice Hockey Federation apparently secured the frozen vulcanized rubber disks immediately after the games and handed them to the Hall of Fame located in Toronto.
Hughes is happy “his” puck surfaced but believes he is the rightful owner of a piece of memorabilia that David Kohler, president of SCP Auctions, estimated might be worth $1 million.
“I don’t see why Megan Keller or I shouldn’t have those pucks,” Hughes told ESPN. “I’m trying to get it. Like, that’s [B.S.] that the Hockey Hall of Fame has it, in my opinion. Why would they have that puck?”
Hughes might not like the answer. The provenance of the puck is similar to that of a basketball or football used in a notable moment. It is dissimilar to a historic home run because a baseball leaves the field of play, and the owner becomes the fortunate fan.
“Because of the increasing value of memorabilia, ownership of items has become standardized over the last decade or so,” said an expert who agreed to speak anonymously because they work in the acquisition of such items. “Whoever purchased the puck owns it. Jerseys belong to the team, shoes and gloves to the player, the puck to whoever supplied it to the Olympics.”
That would be the International Ice Hockey Federation, the governing body of the Olympics hockey tournament. The IIHF employees who immediately secured those precious pucks amid gold-medal bedlam apparently did their job well.
“The puck was designated for archival preservation with the Hockey Hall of Fame to ensure its long-term safekeeping and historical recognition,” an IIHF spokesperson said.
The pucks are featured in an “Olympics ‘26” display that also contains a hockey stick used by Brady Tkachuk of the U.S. team and a U.S. jersey worn by four-time Olympian Hilary Knight.
It might strike some as odd that the display is in Canada, where fans are mourning the loss to the United States, but that’s been the location of the Hall of Fame since it was established in 1943. HOF president Jamie Dinsmore said in a statement that the display contains “donated items,” although it is unclear whether the IIHF has donated or merely loaned the pucks to the HOF.
“The Olympics ’26 display will help ensure that these unforgettable Olympic moments are preserved for our guests from around the world to experience,” Dinsmore said.
Meanwhile, Hughes told ESPN he wants the puck to become the property of one particular fan — his father, who collects memorabilia for him and his brothers Quinn and Luke. All three play in the NHL.
“I wouldn’t even want it for myself. I’d want it for my dad. I know he’d just love, love having it,” Hughes said. “When I look back in my career, I don’t collect too many things for myself, but my dad’s a monster collector for the three of us. I know he would have a special place for it.”
Or it could be sold at auction, where certainly it would pay for any dental work Hughes needs after getting teeth knocked out during the gold-medal game. Various auction houses have estimated the value of the puck to be from $40,000 to $1 million.
Should he acquire the puck, though, Hughes might not even consider selling it. The first pick of the 2019 NHL draft, he signed an eight-year, $64 million contract extension with the New Jersey Devils four years ago.
