35 Replies to “Goodbye, Golden Jet”

  1. He was the man.

    Expanded the game from basically 6 teams in the east to a national presence. Brought in the curved stick. First million dollar contract.
    Hockey owes him. A troubled guy with demons.

    2. “First million dollar contract.”

      Ben Hatskin had the million dollar cheque or a facsimile in a frame on his office wall.

      I kept my eyes open sitting in the $4 cheap seats in the Edmonton Coliseum as Bobby Hull and the 2 anemic Swedes were coming in on the net. I didn’t need a Bobby Hull slapshot to the nose. The glass wasn’t as high back in the day.

    3. Little known story from his years in Winnipeg. The ‘papers reported that his wife had filed a complaint of domestic abuse. They didn’t report that she’d sold his career memorabilia in a garage sale.

    4. “Brought in the curved stick.” I believe that was his teammate, Stan Mikita. A former teammate told me of theirs. The story was that Mikita was late for practice and threw his stick and bag in the back of the car. The stick unknowingly got caught between door and the car pillar. It curved his stick, and it was the only one he had.

  2. Yeah, kind of a big deal for me too. Many winter mornings with a bowl of Cheerios reading the back of the box he and Stan Makita always seemed to be featured on for inspiration before heading to the pond.
    Sadly, It’s come to the point where I don’t even know who makes the playoffs these days.
    I think they all do now.
    RIP.

  4. Signed my cast in the Shriners Hospital in Winnipeg, (incidentally torn down a few months ago,) in the mid ’60s.
    That was memorable.
    Unfortunately, he is forever tarnished by the revelations of his private life.

  5. I read that Bobby was shooting pucks over the glass in the Chicago arena and breaking the backs off the seats until the owner came running down yelling and screaming.
    I also saw him on a fishing show in the 80’s and the dude had some serious pipes. Some of today’s players have arms like little girls.

      1. The one where he’s tossing a hay bale shirtless has been hanging in our boathouse for who knows how long. My wife and her mum have always been quite fond of it for obvious reasons.

      2. Holy crap! And not a mg of steroids in sight.
        So sad to keep seeing obits of my boyhood heroes

    2. There’s a famous photo of Gordie Howe fishing shirtless and he looks like he just won the Mr.Olympia. That’s also hanging in the boathouse as apparently I married a reformed puck bunny

      1. And where does your picture of your buff pectoral muscles hang? Enquiring minds want to know

    3. You can be sure that Bobby and likely Gordie were big into the anabolic steroids and that is the reason for the difference in muscle development vs today when testing is so ubiquitous.

      Anabolic steroids were common among athletes worldwide until the 1960s, when the Olympic Games Committee and many professional sports leagues banned their use. Though this came as quite the shock to people who had used them for years to gain size, strength, and power, there was actually a very good reason for that ban. Simply put, anabolic steroids made the games “unfair” for those who could not obtain steroids or who could not use them due to underlying medical conditions. The athletes who could tolerate high doses of steroids would always outperform those who could not, so the games went from a measure of skill against skill to a measure of who could take the most steroids.

      1. Actually I’m quite sure neither took them – there are of stories of Gordie Howe as a young man with great strength. Some guys are just born with great genes.

      2. I can be sure of the opposite for those two until you prove otherwise.
        #1 The NHL was not American football or Mr. Olympia.
        #2 In the 60’s, the amounts of steroids used would be called micro-dosing today.
        # I’ve read more than the average bear when it comes to roids.

        2. Bulk wasn’t the thing back in the day. I knew a guy who was centre for the Queen’s U football team around or maybe before 1970. As he wasn’t huge, I asked him what weight he played at. 205 pounds. The Fridge didn’t play until 1985. Now most high schools have 300 pound linemen.

  6. I met Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita when they moved to St. Catharines, Ontario because they were signed up by the St. Catharines TeePees. (The Blackhawk’s farm team). They attended the same high school as I did. I was introduced to them by my friend Gary Martin (who, in my opinion, had more natural ability than either Hull or Mikita and I say this without in any way intending to diminish their talent). Martin used to work out with the team from time to time. Another opinion: Martin could have been another Gordie Howe, but he had no ambitions in that direction. I found both Hull and Mikita to be both rock solid guys but Mikita was more approachable.

    1. Back in the days when the NHL signed young kids to lifetime contracts. They sued Bobby Hull and and the WHA and that practice was tossed out.

  7. I got to shake the man’s hand at Wendell Clark’s bar in Vaughn maybe ten years ago. He called me over to his dark corner as he noticed I had recognized him. All of the hockey moms on our team were being chatted up by Marcel Dionne and other notable greats. I refused to go over so as to let the man have some privacy, but he insisted. I told him that in the late sixties, and early 70’s we played road hockey, and each of us wore the #9 Blackhawks jersey. He insisted on a picture (he was quite inebriated), and I grabbed his forearm. He was still very muscular, and his hands and forearms were enormous. I still have my Canadian Tire Bobby Hull puck that tells me how fast my slap shot went. RIP. Thanks for the memories.

  8. I met him twice, once at the big bull sale in Edmonton, and the other time at a herd dispersal sale outside Leduc. He could have been a successful politician if he wanted to, very good with people one on one or talking to a crowd.

  9. Benny Hatskin didn’t have the money when he signed Hull to the $ 1 million contract. So, he “invented” the entrance fee for the teams in the WHA that funded the contract. Smart businessman that Benny.

  10. Fifty years ago or so, Bobby stopped for gas at our local corner store in Laggan Ont. on his way back from a cattle auction in Lachute, Quebec. The storekeeper asked Bobby if he would mind waiting around for a few minutes because there was a local fellow who would really like to meet him. Then the store keeper phoned my Dad (we were, and still are, Hawks fans) who drove over to meet him.

    “A hell of a nice fellow” said the Old Man. “Must have shot the shit with him for half an hour!”

    My brother still has the signed photograph that the Old Man came home with that day: “To Keith, From one farmer to another, Bobby Hull”

  11. What is it with all the news reports saying Hull was the first player to score 50 goals in a season. Has Rocket Richard been erased?

  12. A super athlete. One of my favourites.

    Ran into him at the Dorval airport after his hair transplant. Looked as though the replacements came from his crotch!

    Doesn’t diminish his hockey skills.

  13. During the strike shortened season, CBC replayed classic NHL games. One game between Chicago and Detroit, with about three minutes left and the Wings up by a couple, Hull came barrelling down the wing and as he was about to let go that famous slapshot, Terry Sawchuk calmly skated out of his net and let him score. Ole! It was hilarious. I wonder how many goals he would have had if he’d stayed in the NHL. His 200+ WHL goals don’t count, of course, but he’d have over 800 if they did. Great player. Fun to watch . RIP Bobby.

  14. I have a vivid memory of Bobby Hull signing his contract with the Winnipeg Jets while on a flat-deck trailer parked at the corner of Portage and Main, the city’s big intersection. Did this really happen? Ben Hatskin’s showmanship if it did, does anyone else remember it? Us kids in that crowd wiggled through to be right against the trailer to witness history and see our hero up close…RIP Bobby

  15. I grew up in Winnipeg. Bobby Hull was well known as a wife beater. For me he will never be a great man.

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