Bobby Hull Biography - Hockey Prodigy, Top Scorer In Nhl, Chronology, The Nhl's Most Popular Player
sport ice headlines
1939-
Canadian hockey player
One of the most dynamic players in the National Hockey League (NHL) in the 1960s, Bobby Hull earned the nickname "The Golden Jet" for his quick moves and solid shooting ability on the ice and his colorful personality off the ice. Setting numerous scoring records during his fifteen seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks, Hull was the first player to win a contract paying him over $100,000 a year. He was also the first star player to be signed to the fledgling World Hockey Association (WHA) in 1972, another move that helped to shake up the staid management that characterized the sport at the time. Hull returned to a final season in the NHL in 1979-1980 but ended his career on a sour note as it coincided with some nasty headlines about his divorce from his wife of twenty years, Joanne McKay. The separation affected Hull's relationship with the couple's five children, one of whom, Brett Hull, would grow up to become a gifted NHL player in his own right. In his retirement Hull put most of energy into running his cattle ranching operations in Canada, but he remained an active commentator on the sport the made him famous and was frequently in the headlines for his blunt remarks.
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Robert Marvin Hull, Jr. was born on January 3, 1939 in Point Anne, Ontario, Canada, where his father worked in a cement plant. The eldest son in a family of eleven children, Hull received a pair of ice skates as a Christmas present when he was three years old and took to the ice immediately. During his childhood he often cleared the ice so that he could skate on the frozen surface of the Bay of Qu…
The infusion of new talent into the Blackhawks' line up did not pay dividends at first. Hull had just thirteen goals in seventy games in his debut season in 1957-58. The next season he improved his record to eighteen goals in seventy games. The 1959-60 season proved to be the turning point in Hull's NHL career. Hull shared the goal-scoring title with thirty-nine goals and led the lea…
Although the 1961 Stanley Cup was the only one the Blackhawks won during Hull's time with the team, his popularity eclipsed that of almost any other player in the NHL in the 1960s. His powerful slap shot—once clocked at 119 miles per hour—led to another title of the league's top scorer in 1962, when he racked up fifty goals and eighty-four total points. That year the Bl…
It seemed that Hull had almost single-handedly revived the Blackhawks' fortunes and his salary climbed to $100,000 for the 1968-69 season. Yet he faced a series of battles with the team's owners. After investors started up a rival hockey league, the World Hockey Association (WHA), in 1972 to compete with the NHL, Hull was one of the first players they approached about the venture. &#…
Hull completed his NHL career with 1,063 games, 610 goals, and 560 assists. His WHA statistics included 411 games, 303 goals, and 335 assists. As an offensive player with few peers, Hull was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983. That same year his son, Brett Hull, began playing for the Penticton Knights, the first step in a hockey career that would eventually take him to the Stanley Cup-w…
A native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Ben Hatskin was born in 1918 to parents who had emigrated from Russia. A standout football player in high school, he became one of the first Canadian students to win an athletic scholarship to an American university. He played for the Sooners at the University of Oklahoma but returned to Winnipeg to play for the Blue Bombers before he graduated from college.…
Although contemporary NHL fans are more familiar with the impressive career of his son, Detroit Red Wings right wing Brett Hull, Bobby Hull retains his legendary status in the sport's history. Both on and off the ice, Hull instigated some fundamental changes in the way hockey was played and managed. As a player Hull transformed the sport into a game that emphasized offensive maneuvers, quic…
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