Hockey great Bobby Hull still has all the right moves
Published Saturday August 9th, 2008
Hockey Hall of Famer Bobby Hull spent time recently with some First Nation youth in Fredericton in support of their participation in the North American Indigenous Games.
Hull, who used to be known as The Golden Jet, was a huge hit with the youngsters.
Reporter Adam Bowie caught up with Hull in a hallway at the Fredericton Inn and they spoke about the upcoming Indigenous Games and his career in professional hockey.
Q: What three things are always in your fridge?
A: In my fridge down in Florida, you'd be likely to find a piece of key-lime pie. You'd likely find some of my wife's pasta, which she makes up with different kinds of fish. And you've got to have some pickled beets, 'cause they're the best.
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Q: Do you enjoy working with kids at events like these?
A: Any time that I can be involved with the youth of Canada who are competing, I'm all for it. I remember growing up and watching the Olympics and not being able to take part in those games during my youth, but then playing professional hockey in Chicago and then in the WHA I got to be able to play for Team Canada in the Canada Cup. It's a wonderful feeling to be able to represent your country.
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Q: Do you feel it's important to emphasize to kids the importance of staying active?
A: We were fortunate when we were growing up that we didn't have any TVs or video games. So we had to go out and make our own fun and we did that through participating in summer and winter sports. All summer long we played baseball and swam and, in the fall, of course, football came along and then we couldn't wait for the ponds to freeze so that we could play shinny and enjoy other winter sports. I think we were more fortunate growing up when we did. My wife and I always talk and I say, 'I wish we could regress about 50 to 75 years and start all over again with the horse and buggy.'
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Q: Nowadays there is so much hockey coverage on television that people can watch nearly any game that happens. Does that ruin some of the sport's mystique? Before, Hockey Night in Canada was pretty much the only chance you had to see your favourite players on TV.
A: Yeah, I believe it's good and it's bad. I remember in the Original Six, it was such a great event - Hockey Night in Canada - because it brought professional hockey to the shut-ins and to people on the far East Coast here in the Maritimes, and to the far West Coast out in B.C. It was a big deal. Now, people can see a few games a week and if they have that sports channel they can be watching NHL hockey all week long.
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Q: Do you get to watch many games with (your son) Brett (Hull)?
A: Not now that he has become a co-general manager down in Dallas. He's done a wonderful job and I knew that he wanted to be involved in putting a team together, but he had just been retired two years and all of a sudden he's general manager in Dallas and doing a masterful job of putting his team into the third round. I think if they had maybe a little more astute coaching, they might have beat Detroit. I said before the playoffs started that it would be Pittsburgh and Dallas in the finals and I wasn't far astray.
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Q: You helped pioneer the 'banana blade.' What do you think of these sticks today?
A: When Brett was playing and I would go to his games, he'd have three or four sticks already made up on the rack and I used to grab a hold of them and I used to just salivate. They were so beautiful. Each one was the exact same pattern as the other. The same stiffness, the same hook, the same flex - everything was right about them. We used those old wooden Northland Pro's sticks and maybe out of a dozen, I might get three that I could use in a game situation. The rest I'd use in practice, and it would take the torch and the saw so I could get 'em in shape enough for practice.
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Q: What do you think of the upcoming outdoor game between Chicago and Detroit?
A: I was at the press conference (recently) and they had the boards put up in Wrigley Field, and it takes me back to about 1963 when I was in Chicago and I went to Wrigley to watch Chicago play the New York Giants. I watched the Bears beat the Giants for the championship in the NFL. It's going to be some work of art to have those kids down there playing on that field with that wind blowing north and south across the way. It'll be a thing that everyone that is playing in it will always remember, and the 40-some thousand in the stands will remember for the rest of their days.
Adam Bowie is a reporter with The Daily Gleaner. He can be reached at bowie.adam@dailygleaner.com
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