Golden Guts

Bobby Hull Re-Engineers the Hockey World

Van Oler | Special to chicagoblackhawks.com

As Dr. Evil learned in the original Austin Powers movie, “one meeeeeellion dollars” doesn’t get the respect it once did. However, in 1972 it was an extraordinary amount of money, and the World Hockey Association (WHA) wanted to pay it to one player in an effort to buy immediate credibility for a league yet to play a single game.

That player, of course, was Bobby Hull.

By 1972 Robert Marvin Hull was an athletic demi-god in one of the world’s most important cities. During his time as teammates with Stan Mikita in the Madhouse on Madison, the Blackhawks were the best team in America’s second largest city.

Neither MJ nor Walter Payton had yet begun their legendary Chicago careers, so not only was Hull the most prominent player in the NHL, he was at that time also the most famous professional athlete in the city’s history.

Here then was Bobby Hull’s choice: remain a well-paid, popular jock in an important, dynamic city where he was as widely recognized as the mayor or toss all that and move to… Winnipeg. A fine place, to be sure, but Winnipeg nonetheless.

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