Golden Jet is dead.
Hockey icon Bobby Hull was 84.
Known internationally for his Hall of Fame NHL career with the Chicago Blackhawks, Hull was also a star for the upstart World Hockey Association’s Winnipeg Jets – famously signing a million-dollar contract at Portage & Main in 1972 To sign.
In Winnipeg, Hull teamed up with Swedish players Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson to form The Hot Line – one of the most formidable lines in hockey in the 1970s – and coached the Jets to a pair of AVCO Cups during his time in Winnipeg. led.
The first player in NHL history to score more than 50 goals in a single season, Hull set a record of 54 in 1966, breaking it only two seasons later by four goals.
Along with Chicago teammate Stan Mikita, he is credited with popularizing the curved hockey stick blade in the NHL.
Hull was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983, and was not the only member of his family to achieve hockey stardom – his brother Dennis played alongside him for eight seasons with the Blackhawks, and his son Brett won a Stanley Cup. Champion and Hall of Fame player in his own right.
Hull’s son Bart played for Saskatchewan and Ottawa in the Canadian Football League.
Bobby Hull will not attend the Winnipeg Jets Hall of Fame ceremony
Annie Wersching: ‘The Last of Us,’ ‘Picard,’ ’24’ actor dies at 45
Despite a long list of individual and team awards and records – including a Stanley Cup championship in 1961, three Art Ross Trophies and two Hart Memorial Trophies – Hull’s legacy is a controversial one.
He pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer in 1987, and was charged with abuse against two of his three wives, although the assault and battery charges were dropped in the mid-1980s.
Hull also came under scrutiny in the mid-’90s after making pro-Nazi remarks – which he later denied saying in an interview with a Russian newspaper.
He served as an ambassador for the Blackhawks until the 2021–22 season, when the team severed ties with him.
Hull, whose No. 9 banner hangs at the Canada Life Centre, was inducted into the Winnipeg Jets Hall of Fame in 2016 along with Hedberg and Nilsson, although he did not return to Winnipeg for the ceremony.
With files from The Canadian Press
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.