Former professional hockey star Brett Hull was never the sort of brawler that roams the ice looking for a tussle, but that didn't make him any less intimidating to opposing goalies. Nicknamed "The Golden Brett" -- a play on words based on his father and NHL legend Bobby Hull's nickname "The Golden Jet" -- Hull terrorized opposing goalies over the course of his long and high-scoring career.
Lineage
Hull was born to one of the sport's all-time greats. His father Bobby used blazing speed and a powerful slapshot to become a star in the 1960s. The elder Hull, who was inducted into the NHL Hall of Fame in 1983, retired from the sport in 1980 after scoring 610 goals in 1,063 regular-season games. On August 6, 1964 in Belleville, Ontario, Joanne Hull gave birth to Brett.
No Overnight Sensation
Unlike most eventual sports superstars, Brett Hull wasn't an overnight sensation. He played mid-level amateur hockey as a youth and was the 117th pick of the Calgary Flames. He played only a few NHL games as a rookie and then was relegated to the Flames' minor league club -- the Moncton Wildcats -- for most of his second season as a professional. That's when he began to blossom.
Breakout
Hull opened eyes during his first full season in the minors, recording a league-high 92 points and earning rookie of the year accolades. He was then traded to the St. Louis Blues, the franchise for which he spent much of his career and with which he'll forever be linked. He broke out in the 1988-1989 season by scoring 41 goals and recoding 43 assists, and became a full-fledged star the following season, when he scored an NHL-best 72 goals. He then repeated as league goal-scoring champion in each of the following two years.
Career Overview
Hull surpassed the elusive 100-point mark four times in his 10 seasons with the Blues and was named an all-star seven times during the same span, but St. Louis was considered a one-man show and never won a title with Hull. He then signed as a free agent with the Dallas Stars and won a Stanley Cup in his first year there. He'd later add another championship with the Detroit Red Wings before retiring following the 200-3-2004 season with 741 goals -- then third-best in NHL history. In 2009, he joined his father as an NHL Hall of Fame inductee.
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