Cassius Hughes — better known as Bear — grew up in a family of hockey players.

What else might you expect from a family that features six brothers and three sisters?

“Two are older than me,” Hughes said. “The oldest one is 10 years older than I am (28 now), and he was playing hockey when he was 6 years old. My dad helps manage the ice arena in Coeur d’Alene, so we were always around the arena, whether that was working or playing hockey.”

Bear Hughes attended Spokane Chiefs games as a fan, sitting upstairs in Section 222 of the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena.

Now, just a short 11 years later, Hughes — better known to fans as Bear — has a much closer view of the action as a center on the team, currently third in the U.S. Division of the Western Hockey League.

“I’ve been a big Spokane Chiefs fan my entire life,” Hughes said. “They’re the local team around here, so I came to a lot of games as a kid. I knew a few of the local players, the Yamamotos (Kyler and Keanu), Tyler Johnson and Tanner Mort. When it became a reality, it was pretty exciting.”

As for the origin of his nickname, that’s a mystery.

“My legal name is Cassius,” Bear Hughes said. “But I’ve had that nickname of Bear since I was a little kid. So it kind of stuck. We don’t actually know where it came from, and there’s a few different stories. One was that I loved Winnie the Pooh as a kid, and had a Winnie the Pooh blanket. Another idea of where it started came from my dad, but there’s no real concrete story of where the nickname came from.”

“We’d call him C. Paul and that morphed into C. Bear,” said Vince Hughes, Bear’s dad. “We scratch our heads and wonder when we started calling him that. We have a son that was 4 at the time, and one day, Bear was sick and my wife had to call the school and said Cassius wasn’t going to be at school. When she got off the phone, my 4-year old asked, ‘Who’s Cassius.’”

Vince Hughes played other sports growing up.

“He played football and wrestled in high school,” Bear Hughes said. “Hockey was a little foreign to him at first. We moved here from Montana because of his job. The rink was for sale in Coeur d’Alene, so him and a few of his friends got together and bought it because hockey was an interesting sport to him.”

Then, due to heavy snow, the roof collapsed on KYRO Arena in late 2008, leaving area hockey enthusiasts without a place to skate.

“All of us were playing hockey at the time,” Bear Hughes said. “I was about 7 and both of my older brothers were playing. There was five of us playing at that time, and my sister skated as well, so it left us with an idea of, ‘What do we do now?’”

While what is now called Frontier Ice Arena was being rebuilt, that meant — for the time being — Hughes tried other sports.

“I actually didn’t play competitive hockey from when I was 7 to 11 years old while the new arena was being built,” Bear Hughes said. “We’d skate on frozen lakes or go to the Eagles Ice Arena in Spokane. I played soccer and rugby as a kid and played for my school teams, but didn’t love them as much as I did hockey.”

“When the rink collapsed, it was hard to raise money to get it back open,” Vince Hughes said. “The locker rooms at the previous facility weren’t great, so when we raised the money, we wanted to do it right. It took a while to get it open, but it’s nice to have open now.”

When Frontier opened, everything changed.

“It was a lot of excitement for a lot of us when it opened,” Bear Hughes said. “All of my friends, we’d go there and play hockey. We’d all kind of found different sports, but when it opened, it gave some of us an opportunity to get back into it.”

Hughes joined the Chiefs last season after playing with the Spokane Braves, a Junior ‘B’ team in the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League. The league serves as the next step to get players to the WHL.

“I played in two regular season games and in three playoff games,” Hughes said. “After the Braves season was done, the Chiefs called me and asked if I’d be interested in playing with them the rest of the season.”

Thus far this season, Hughes has appeared in 29 games, scoring 11 goals and assisting on 17.

“He’s so easy to coach,” first-year Spokane Chiefs coach Manny Viveiros said. “Sometimes you forget about him, because you don’t have to coach him too much. He’s one of the most low-maintenance kids I’ve ever had.”

“He continues to surprise us,” Viveiros said. “From training camp to right now, he’s continued to grow. Once he got going, he’s been one of our best offensive players. He’s smart, and just enjoys playing the game. He’s got all the making of a future pro player for sure. He’s progressed and developed into a really big part of our team.”

“Our top two lines are pretty even, so we really don’t have a top line,” said Hughes, a center. “Both lines play a lot of minutes, and there’s not necessarily one group that’s better than the other.”

As a center, Hughes is involved on almost everything on the ice.

“The center in the offensive zone, you’re just playing with a system,” Hughes said. “All three forwards can do the same job. In the defensive zone, it’s a little different and the center plays in the middle between the defensemen and the wingers will stay up top in the zone with the defense from the other team. I’ve played center my entire life. You’re involved in every play in both the offensive and defensive zone. There’s no sitting around.”

Hughes is currently a senior at Immaculate Conception Academy in Post Falls.

“The school is about 10 minutes from my house, so I’ll usually wake up about 7:30 in the morning,” Hughes said. “My first class is at 8:30 in the morning and I’m usually in class until 11:30, then I’ll drive to the rink here (the Spokane Arena) and we usually have a team meeting and practice at 1 p.m. After practice, and depending on traffic, I’ll usually get home about 5.”

The Chiefs recently completed a five-game road trip, and that much time on the road can cost Hughes time in the classroom.

“My grades have been pretty good throughout school,” said Hughes, who has attended Immaculate Conception since kindergarten. “It’s tough missing too much school, but the teachers are really understanding about me missing that much school. It’s a private school and I’ve gone there for 13 years and have a good relationship with everyone there. They know I’m serious about school.”

At times, Hughes added he finds himself getting caught up in how far he’s come.

“I always sat in Section 222, and to be in that kind of atmosphere is kind of amazing,” Bear Hughes said. “The fans are great, the organization is first class. It’s a lot of fun to be a part of.”

To find his family at games in Spokane, all he has to do is look down from where it all started.

“My family sits in 122 now,” Bear Hughes said. “It’s weird to be on the ice when I’ve always been in the stands.”

“We always knew he had some ability,” Vince Hughes said. “But kids develop and progress in stages. You never really know, but he was able to keep up with the other guys in the WHL after having a good year with the Braves. We’re just really happy for him. We’re happy that he’s able to do something he enjoys. In a family of nine siblings, family is really important to him and we’re real fortunate he’s able to play in Spokane.”

With his dad involved with Frontier Ice Arena, it has also opened some other avenues as far as getting advice from other hockey players.

“I’ve met (Wayne) Gretzky a few times,” Bear Hughes said. “He does a camp every year at Frontier. I’ve met Brenden Morrow and Barrett Jackman as well, but am more familiar with guys like Derek Ryan, Bobby Ryan and Tyler Johnson because they’re still in the NHL and skate out at Frontier during the summer and sometimes will let me come on the ice with them. Sometimes, if I know them really well, like Tyler, I’ll ask them a lot of questions because they’ve played the same position and ask about tips about faceoffs.”

Johnson, now with the Tampa Bay Lightning, played for Spokane from 2007-11, leading the Chiefs to a Memorial Cup title in 2008.

“He was part of that championship team, which I think is really special,” Bear said of Johnson, who graduated from Central Valley High in Spokane Valley. “Especially being a hometown kid. It’s definitely something I want to do myself someday.”

When Hughes isn’t on the ice, he likes to remain active — when time allows.

“There’s never a dull moment in our house,” Bear Hughes said. “I’m not a big reader, but we’ve got a little hockey rink in the basement that we’ll play on. I don’t hunt or fish, but my brothers do. In the summer, I have a lot more free time and love to swim and be down by the lake or river. I just love the water.”

After this season, Hughes has two more years remaining at the junior hockey level, then can either move on to another level, or opt to play collegiately in Canada.

“The age of players in the WHL is from 16 to 20 years old,” Bear Hughes said. “You’re allowed to have four 16-year-olds, then three 20-year-olds, and as many of the other ages as you want. A lot of the guys come in as a 16- or 17-year-old, but I came in when I was 18. The opportunity never really came up for me to play competitively when I was younger to get noticed, so I was more of a local playing for my dad’s team. And that really helped me a lot.”

Hughes could also be selected in the NHL Draft next year.

“We’ll see what happens from that,” Bear Hughes said. “There’s a lot of different professional levels, or I could go play in Canada using the scholarship money I’ve gained from playing in Spokane.”

Not that he’s thought too much about college already.

“I’m just trying to stay in the moment,” Bear Hughes said. “I’m kind of in awe that I’m here, and trying not to think about it that much. When I get to be 19 or 20, I’ll probably start thinking about it a little more.”