Bobby Hull

**Bobby Hull** (born Robert Marvin Hull on January 3, 1939 in Point Anne, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who played in the NHL for the Chicago Blackhawks, Winnipeg Jets and the Hartford Whalers.

## Playing Career

### Early Playing Career

Bobby played his minor hockey in Belleville, and then Junior B hockey for the Woodstock Warriors in the fall of 1954. He led the Warriors to the 1955 Sutherland Cup as Ontario champions.

He later played for the Galt Black Hawks and the St. Catharines Teepees in the Ontario Hockey Association before joining the Chicago Black Hawks in 1957 at the age of 18.

### Professional

Bobby quickly blossomed into a star, finishing second in the Calder Memorial Trophy balloting his first season. He originally wore numbers 16 and 7 as a Black Hawk but later switched to his famous number 9 (a tribute to his childhood idol Gordie Howe).

By his third season (1959–60), he led the league in goal- and point-scoring (the Art Ross Trophy), a feat which he also achieved in 1961–62 and 1965–66. He went on to lead Chicago to the Stanley Cup in 1961—their third overall and first in 23 years. He finished second in point-scoring three further times.

On March 12, 1966, Bobby became the first NHL player to score more than 50 goals in a season, surpassing Maurice Richard's, Bernie Geoffrion's and his own mark of 50 goals.

His 51st goal, scored on Cesare Maniago of the New York Rangers, earned him a seven-minute standing ovation from the Chicago Stadium faithful. He eventually scored 54 goals that season, the highest single-season total of the Original Six era.

That same year, Bobby set the record for the most points in a season with 97, one more than the previous record set by Dickie Moore 7 years earlier. His point total was tied the next year by teammate Stan Mikita and their record was broken three years later by Phil Esposito. He led the league in goal scoring seven times during the 1960s.

Despite breaking his own goals in a season record by four goals in 1968–69 (netting 58) and setting a career NHL high of 107 points (second in the league that year), the Hawks missed the playoffs for the first time since his rookie season that year.

By Bobby's final NHL season, he had scored 50 goals or more a remarkable five times; this was only one time less than all other players in NHL history combined up until that point in time.

In his 15 full NHL seasons, Bobby was voted the First-Team All-Star left winger ten times and the Second-Team All-Star left winger twice. His slapshot was once clocked at 118.3 mph (190.5 km/h) and he could skate 29.7 mph (47.8 km/h). During his drive to be the first to eclipse the 50 goal mark, his wrist shot was claimed to be harder than his slapshot.

Long unhappy with his poor salary as one of hockey's preeminent superstars, Bobby responded to overtures from the upstart World Hockey Association's Winnipeg Jets in 1972 by jesting that he would jump to them for a million dollars, a sum then considered absurd.

Gathering the other league owners together to contribute to the unprecedented amount on the grounds that inking such a major star gave instant credibility to the new rival league that was competing directly against the entrenched NHL, Jets' owner Ben Hatskin agreed to the sum, and signed Bobby as a player/coach for a contract worth $1.75 million over 10 years plus a $1 million signing bonus.

Although his debut with Winnipeg was held up in litigation by the NHL, he instantly became the WHA's greatest star winning the Gordie Howe Trophy as league MVP in 1972–73 and 1974–75. With Swedish linemates Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson he formed one of the most formidable forward lines of the 1970s (known as "The Hot Line"), leading the Jets to two AVCO Cups during his time with the club.

Bobby's best performance was during the 1974–75 season, when he scored 77 goals to set a new professional mark, while adding 65 assists for a total of 142 points, five behind the league leader, one of two times he finished second in the point-scoring race in the WHA.

In the five WHA seasons in which he played more than half the schedule, he was voted a First-Team All-Star thrice and a Second-Team All-Star twice, while scoring 50 goals four times and tallying 100 points four times.

Because he joined the rival league, Bobby was not allowed to represent Team Canada in the 1972 Summit Series, which pitted Canada's top NHL players against the USSR's national team.

Two years later, a second Summit Series was played and Bobby joined many WHA stars (including Gordie Howe, who had been retired from the NHL at the time of the initial Summit Series) in a second series against the Soviet national team.

The WHA lost the series four games to one (three ending in a tie), despite Bobby's seven goals. He was a key member of the Canadian squad that won the 1976 Canada Cup, though, scoring five goals and three assists in seven games.

Slowed by injuries and age, Bobby played only a few games in the WHA's final season of 1978–79; however, after the 1979 merger of the two leagues (including the Jets) and reportedly in financial straits, he came out of retirement to play once more for the NHL Jets.

He played in eighteen games before being traded to the Hartford Whalers for future considerations, bringing the two-time Gordie Howe Trophy winner together with the 51-year-old Howe himself (who, after Bobby's initial contest with the Whalers, told the press, "The kid looks good in his first game.").

He played effectively in nine games (two goals and five assists) and three playoff games before retiring once more to care for his partner, who had been injured in an automobile accident.

In September 1981, Bobby attempted one final comeback with the New York Rangers at age 42, at the suggestion of Rangers coach Herb Brooks, who wanted to try reuniting him with his former Jets teammates, Hedberg & Nilsson.

The comeback attempt lasted five exhibition games, during which Bobby had one goal and one assist, before he and the Rangers both decided it was best to end the comeback.

He ended his career having played in 1,063 NHL games, accumulating 610 goals, 560 assists, 1,170 points, 640 penalty minutes, three Art Ross Trophies, two Hart Memorial Trophies (he finished second or third in the voting an additional six times), a Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, and a Stanley Cup Championship, adding 62 goals and 67 assists for 129 points in 119 playoff games.

He played in 411 WHA games, scoring 303 goals, 335 assists and 638 points, adding 43 goals and 37 assists in 60 playoff games. His professional total of 1,018 goals (NHL and WHA including playoffs) is the third most of all-time after Wayne Gretzky (1,109) and Gordie Howe (1,071).

### Post-Playing Career

In 2003, Bobby was named the figurehead commissioner of a new World Hockey Association, intended to operate during the 2004–05 NHL lockout; however it never entered play, and the organization subsequently ran several ephemeral low-minor league and unsanctioned Tier II junior leagues.

He currently serves as an ambassador for the Chicago Blackhawks' organization.

## Accolades

* Art Ross Trophy winner (1960, 1962, and 1966)
* NHL First All-Star Team Left Wing (1960, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, and 1972)
* Stanley Cup champion (1961)
* NHL Second All-Star Team left wing (1963 and 1971)
* Hart Memorial Trophy winner (1965 and 1966)
* Lady Byng Memorial Trophy winner (1965)
* Lester Patrick Trophy winner (1969)
* Became third hockey player to appear on the cover of Time magazine
* NHL All-Star game MVP (1970, 1971), only player to win consecutive All-Star game MVP awards
* WHA First All-Star Team (1973, 1974, and 1975)
* WHA Second All-Star Team (1976 and 1978)
* WHA Most Valuable Player (1973 and 1975)
* Avco Cup (WHA) Championships (1976, 1978, and 1979)
* Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983
* Retired as the second leading goal scorer and ninth leading point scorer in NHL history (currently 17th and 50th respectively)
* Second in WHA history in goals, sixth in assists and third in points.
* In 1998, he was ranked number 8 on The Hockey News' list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players, the highest-ranking left winger
* Upon playing his last playoff game in 1980, he and teammate Gordie Howe became the last active NHL players that had played in the 1950s
* Honoured member of the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame
* Member of the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame
* Inaugural member of the World Hockey Association Hall of Fame.
* Honoured member of the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame
* In 2011, statues of Hull and Stan Mikita were installed outside the United Center, where the Blackhawks currently play

## Personal Life

Bobby was born in Pointe Anne, Ontario, Canada. He was the son of Lena Cook and Robert Edward Hull, a cement company foreman.

He and his wife, Joanne have five children: sons Bobby Jr., Blake, Brett & Bart, and a daughter, Michelle. In July 1981, Claudia Allen gave birth to his younger daughter, Jessica, who graduated from Benedictine College with a degree in Elementary Education and currently resides in Minnesota.

Bobby's third oldest son, Brett Hull was an NHL star too, finishing his own illustrious career with 741 goals, still the fourth-highest goal total in NHL history. He and Brett are the only father-and-son tandem to achieve the marks of more than 50 goals in a NHL season and more than 600 NHL goals.

They are also the only father-and-son tandem to win the Hart Memorial Trophy (Bobby twice and Brett once) and Lady Byng Trophy and to lead the league in goal scoring (Bobby seven times and Brett three times). While playing for the Phoenix Coyotes (formerly the Winnipeg Jets) in 2005, Brett donned his father's retired No. 9 for the last five games of his career.

Bart Hull was a standout running back for the Boise State University Broncos football team in the late eighties and 1990, and played with the Ottawa Rough Riders and Saskatchewan Roughriders in the CFL as well as one season of professional indoor football prior to recurring injuries. Post football, he briefly played professional hockey with the Idaho Steelheads.

Bobby Jr. and Blake both played junior and senior hockey. Bobby Jr. won the Memorial Cup with the 1980 Cornwall Royals. Later, they played together for the Allan Cup-winning Brantford Mott's Clamatos of the OHA Senior A Hockey League (AAA Men's Amateur) in 1987. Bobby Jr. also possessed a powerful shot, but lacked the scoring touch of his father and brother Brett.

His daughter, Michelle, was an accomplished figure skater, becoming British Columbia Pre-Novice Champion at the age of 11. After many knee injuries, she concentrated on her schooling and is now an attorney licensed in two states.