A Family Built for Pro Sports

It’s been a busy summer for Caleb Jones. The blueliner celebrated his older brother Seth winning the Stanley Cup, got married, and then signed a two-year contract with the Penguins.

“I just felt like the opportunity to go into Pittsburgh and kind of be a regular guy every night and really fully be established was something too good to pass up,” Caleb said. “I had a lot of communication with management and the coaches, and I just felt really good about the opportunity I was going to have.

“I'm really excited. I think we'll have a good team, and I think it should be a great chance for me to come in and kind of show what I can do and really earn a spot.”

Caleb, who describes himself as a mobile two-way defenseman, has been training with Seth down in Fort Lauderdale as he prepares for his new opportunity in Pittsburgh. That’s a departure from their usual routine, as the brothers typically work out in Dallas. They were both born in Texas, as their dad Ronald ‘Popeye’ Jones played for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.

The boys got into hockey during Popeye’s one season with Denver in 1999-00, and never looked back.

“He never really had an issue with it. I'm sure deep down, he probably wanted us to play some basketball [laughs], but it just never happened,” Caleb said of his father, who moved into coaching following an 11-year NBA career and won a championship with the Nuggets in 2021.

“He was really supportive the whole time. Him being a pro athlete, he has a lot of good advice. Obviously, a different sport, but kind of just having to work and earn your opportunity every year - I think he's done a good job of kind of giving me that advice when I needed it.”

Popeye knows better than most how difficult it is to make it at the highest level of any sport for anyone, much less two kids from the same family. "Doesn't seem like it's possible," Caleb said. "But growing up, we always dreamed of getting to the NHL."

Seth was drafted in the first round (fourth overall) by Nashville in 2013, and before getting traded to the Panthers at last season’s deadline, he spent time with the Predators, Columbus and Chicago.

Caleb, drafted in the fourth round (117^th overall) by Edmonton in 2015, broke into the NHL with the Oilers before joining the Blackhawks for the 2021-22 and ’22-23 seasons. There, he was teammates with Seth.

“Being able to play with him in Chicago for a couple of years and be paired together sometimes on the same defense pair, it was really cool,” Caleb said. “Looking back, it was a really special moment and something that you definitely don't want to take for granted. We enjoyed every second of it.”

Caleb’s time in the Windy City did a lot for his confidence, as he scored nine goals across those two campaigns while appearing in 124 NHL games.

“I think that was a big time for me, because I was able to kind of show myself or prove to myself that I could do some really good things in the league,” Caleb said.

Now, coming to Pittsburgh after one season with Colorado and one with Los Angeles, Jones is hoping to rediscover that assurance and get to his game. Penguins President of Hockey Operations and GM Kyle Dubas has been vocal about how the blue line was lacking last season, and when it comes to shoring it up, they want to give guys like Jones an opportunity who maybe haven’t had it elsewhere.

“I'm really looking forward to trying to just kind of get out of my head and just play my game in Pittsburgh and show what I can do,” Caleb said. “Just have that confidence every night to go out there and do it.”