Brett Hull

Born in Belleville, Ontario, Canada on August 9, 1964, Brett Hull arrived at the height of his father's fame as an NHL player. Bobby Hull took the Chicago Blackhawks to the Stanley Cup finals in 1965, the same year that he won the first of his two consecutive Hart Trophies as the league's Most Valuable Player. Brett and his three brothers spent considerable time with their father at Blackhawks training sessions; when the Black-hawks banned the Hull boys from the ice, Bobby Hull briefly walked off the team in protest.

The stormy relationship of his parents—which ended in divorce in 1980 after allegations of spousal abuse by his mother—estranged Hull from his father during his adolescence. The family had been living in Winnipeg, where Bobby Hull had played with the Jets between 1972 and 1980, but relocated to Vancouver without the elder Hull after the divorce. Hull also gave up playing hockey around this time; at five foot, nine inches tall and 220 pounds, he was too out of shape to contemplate a career as a professional player. After his mother encouraged him to give the sport another try, Hull made the Penticton junior hockey team in 1983 and played well enough to earn a sports scholarship to the University of Minnesota-Duluth.