He notched 18 in his second year, when Chicago reached the playoffs after a five-year drought. 22, 1957, and finished the season with 13. It wasn't long before Chicago fans, who had been turned off by four straight last-place finishes in a six-team league, came flocking back to see the spectacular left wing. He was a toddler when his sisters Maxine and Laura introduced him to skating at an outdoor rink near their home.Īfter progressing through Canada's junior hockey system, he was called up by Chicago at 18 from the St. 3, 1939 in Pointe Anne, Ontario, a small cement-factory town 120 miles northeast of Toronto.
The fourth of 11 children, Hull was born on Jan. His 610 goals were the record for NHL left wings until Luc Robitaille passed him in 2002. Other notable achievements for Hull were his being the second player to score 100 points in a season and being voted the league's first-team all-star left wing 10 times and second-team twice in his last 13 seasons with Chicago. (There also was a fifth 50-goal season for Hull in 1971-72.) Not until the seventies, after expansion and longer schedules, did scoring 50 goals become something other than a rarity. The next four names in the NHL's chronological list of 50-goal scorers in its Official Guide & Record Book are Bobby Hull, Bobby Hull, Bobby Hull and Bobby Hull. No wonder he was one Hull of a scorer.īefore Hull, only twice had players scored 50 goals in a season (Rocket Richard in 1944-45 and Boom Boom Geoffrion in 1960-61). His slap shot was a blur, often traveling more than 100 mph as he terrorized goaltenders with its speed and accuracy. One of the fastest skaters in the game, the 5-foot-10, 193-pound Hull had a remarkable physique with his muscular torso and powerful legs.
Then the flamboyant left wing's signing with the Winnipeg Jets gave instant credibility to a new league, the World Hockey Association, in the seventies. The Golden Jet of the Chicago Blackhawks won seven goal-scoring titles, three overall scoring championships and two Most Valuable Player awards in the National Hockey League in the sixties.īobby Hull celebrates the Blackhawks' 5-1 win over Detroit to win the Stanley Cup in 1961. And I can remember him holding me over the balcony and I thought this is the end, I'm going," says Hull's former wife Joanne on ESPN Classic's SportsCentury series.īobby Hull was instrumental in two hockey leagues in two decades. He took my shoe - with a steel heel - and proceeded to hit me in the head. just picked me up, threw me over his shoulder, threw me in the room, and just proceeded to knock the heck out of me. "I looked the worst after that Hawaii incident.
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