How exactly does one square the account of hockey legend Bobby Hull -who was prominent figure in this community for a time- upon his passing?
A two time Hart Trophy winner and Stanley Cup champion, Hull was a beloved hockey legend throughout North America and made Prince Edward County his off season home for many years, raising beef cattle locally and hobnobbing with local farm kids and their folks on the concession roads in Sophiasburgh Township in the 1960’s and 70’s.

The over/under on his scrawl appearing on a ripped off top of an Export A pack and tucked away in the top drawer of bureau in Prince Edward County farm houses has to be in the hundreds. Hockey royality lived here in the summer time. NHL goal scoring king Bobby Hull played fastball in the local leagues around Picton and knew his way to and from the hay fields on Bethel Street and Black Road.

So when Hull died Monday at the age of 84, there were more than a few tributes paid in the community of the man who modernized the game with his cannonading slap shot and became hockey’s first million dollar player when he jumped to the fledgling World Hockey Association in 1972.

Mark Bousquet, a professional hockeyist who portrayed Andre ‘Poodle’ Lussier in the movie Slapshot, was playing in Philadelphia for the minor league Firebirds when Bobby and Winnipeg Jets paid visits to the city. Bousquet shared a recollection via social media from a Philadelphia Blazers employee who witnessed Hull, after a game, meet a small hockey fan no older than 7.

The boy was blind and listened to NHL games on the radio. Hull took the young lad out on the Spectrum ice and skated around with the starstruck fan, talking with him the entire time. The Golden Jet was at the rink with father and son long after the team bus had departed for the hotel and Hull even kept in contact with the boy, calling him every few weeks.

There are scores of fan interaction stories such as these.

But as golden as Bobby Hull was with fans and in the public eye, in private he was an abusive husband and father.

A 2002 ESPN documentary detailed how his second wife Joanne McKay believed Hull was going to kill her as he beat her with a steel heeled shoe in a Hawaii hotel room in 1966. “ (Bobby) proceeded to hit me in the head. I was covered with blood. And I can remember him holding me over the balcony, and I thought this is the end, I’m going.”

Hull was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence aimed at his third wife Deborah and wound up being convicted for taking a swing at an intervening police officer outside their Chicago-area condominium in 1986. Deborah Hull ultimately chose not to file domestic abuse charges in the matter.

These incidents took place before Bobby was quoted in the Moscow Times in 1998 stating Adolf Hitler “had some good ideas” and just went too far. In the same interview, Hull said the black population in the United States was “growing too fast.” Hull would later deny praising Hitler, said the journalists raised the subject and sued the newspaper.

At the conclusion of his life, you can say Bobby Hull was a tremendous athlete and probably the greatest professional hockey player plying his trade in the NHL for more than a season or two. He was generous to the public during both his playing days and in retirement and always had time for a picture, a laugh, an autograph and a story-particularly if you presented yourself as being from Prince Edward County.

In addition to all those things, he was a serial beater of women so much so his daughter Michelle Hull, witness to her father’s savage rage and alcohol-fueled abuse, became lawyer and makes her living advocating for victims like her mother, the aforementioned McKay. He made racist and antisemitic comments publicly and, allegedly, privately, that would have ended his career immediately if uttered today.

Bobby Hull was a sublime hockey great who always had time for fans and lit up a room with his denturist-supplied smile and store-bought locks.

But beneath the veneer and public persona, he did many things in private that were abhorrent.

To call his legacy ‘complicated’ and write of ‘grey areas’ is wrong. To offer flowery tributes to without bringing up the instances of spousal abuse and antisemitic behaviour is a slap in the face to victims of domestic violence and minorities.

As a pro, Bobby was a bright as the television lights under which he starred.

As a family man and private human being, Hull was as dark as those arenas long after the legions of fans who loved him so had long gone home.

-Jason Parks

PICTURING OUR COMMUNITY

Prince Edward Collegiate Institute students are the benefactors of an incredibly generous donation made by an anonymous donor last week. On Jan. 26, someone from the community presented a cheque for $50,000 to go towards technology upgrades and exterior improvements for the local secondary school campus. Pictured is PECI Principal Andrew Ross and the PECI Panther. (Submitted Photo)