Obsession with Hull’s prowess lasted a lifetime despite his flaws
I may owe my livelihood to Bobby Hull, one of the greatest players in NHL history who died Jan. 30 at age 84.
I was 14 when my father followed Blackhawks games on WGN’s Channel 9. One evening I watched with him as Hull waited with the puck behind his net.
Players didn’t wear helmets back then, and Hull struck a statuesque pose with his blonde locks, square shoulders and a body builder’s physique evident in spite of the protective gear and padding.
I thought I detected a smile in his closedmouth glare, right before he started skating up ice in rhythmic fury.
Not a fancy stick handler like Stan Mikita, Hull trained the puck ahead with one hand on the stick, the better to pump his legs and flex his core to generate more and more speed as crowd clamor intensified.
Nor was it a straight path as he careened in wide loops around opponents who couldn’t catch him, the puck glued to his curved blade.
Once he passed the blue line, when I expected him to move closer to the goal, he launched a slap shot from 50 feet. A compact backswing, the low lean on one skate, the forward stroke, a blur, and all in a fraction of a second. The goalie stood paralyzed as the 118-mph puck went screaming past his ear into the net.
Announcer Lloyd Pettit’s hoarse exclamations at the unassisted, rink-long rush and far flung but lethal blast confirmed I was witnessing an immortal.
Something happened in that moment, an obsession born, and I became a Bobby Hull apostle. I read everything I could about him in the local papers, but it wasn’t enough.
So I was first in my class to master the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, and I hunted down every story, photograph and reference to Hull in magazines and other cities’ papers. Premature prowess in research would pave the way for a career as an educator and writer.
I once Xeroxed several pages from a news magazine at our library that featured an article on Bobby, accompanied by a
photo of him shirtless. I was astounded to read that he never lifted weights but came by his build through arduous labor on his family’s farm.
His record-breaking goal totals, hat tricks, MVP awards and his role in Chicago’s 1961 Stanley Cup championship have been nationally chronicled in the myriad
obituaries written about him since his death.
What I recall best was his skating speed, once clocked at 28 mph. Opposing coaches assigned “shadows” to trail Hull around the rink. How I hated the shadows, like Eddie Shack or Bill Ferguson or the despicable Boston Bruin Derek Sanderson, who tried to goad him off the ice and into the penalty box with cheap shots and trash talk.
One year as an early Christmas gift, my father called an influential friend and got two tickets to a sold-out game at the Chicago Stadium for my brother and me.
Imagine our disappointment when we learned Hull was sitting out the game in a contract dispute. We’d have to content ourselves to watching the likes of Tony Esposito, Pat “Whitey” Stapleton and Pit Martin.
Just before the opening faceoff, while seated high in the stands, I heard what sounded like a fight in our high school cafeteria, the kind of noise that’s generated as gawkers start cheering for blood. It started in the far corner, but the excitement rose and spread throughout the stadium till Net and I looked at each other and knew it had to be true: Bobby had signed in at the last minute and flashed out onto the ice.
The roar would rise again later when he blasted in a goal. And I would hear it again over the TV and the radio for years to come, including when Bobby led the Hawks to the top of the standings.
They should have won another Stanley Cup when they outplayed the Canadiens but couldn’t get the winning goal past a different kind of superstar, goalie Ken Dryden.
Later, when ugly stories circulated about Hull, including racist comments and domestic violence against two of his wives, I didn’t want to believe it. I only accepted the truth after a talk with my father, when I learned elite athletes with the speed and strength and charisma of Superman are also human beings with the same peccadillos and paradoxes like Achilles or Odysseus or the other flawed heroes of classic literature.
And many, like Hull, are felled by pressures, expectations and alcoholism.
As I think back on this, my hope for my young grandchild is she, too, will enjoy exulting in her favorite athletes’ skills and “super powers” as much as I did with the incomparable No. 9. But that when it comes to emulation, she’ll stick with Momma and Papa, the heroes who are raising her.