https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Hull
Famed pro hockey player Bobby Hull died today. I really never knew much about him (& learned almost all of it today on Wikipedia). But for a Minnesota kid like me (from the days before Wayne Gretzky) his name was legendary, and on par with Bobby Orr and Fran Tarkenton.
But like all legend-heroes, he was a mixed bag in real life (Nazi sympathizer – Hitler “just went a little too far” – and accused wife beater – though he apparently later devoted himself to helping his disabled girlfriend/partner). But, a helluva hockey player in between it all, with blinding speed bazooka-power slapshots.
And in Minnesota – and dare I say, most of the Midwest in those times – hockey held a hallowed place among all sports: it was truly the most accessible of all – every kid, every bar girl, every working man’s sport. No St. Paul Rice Street 3.2 tavern (look it up) could operate without the North Stars playing on the 19 inch screen next to the Hamm’s Beer sign over the bar whenever they were playing. And every kid could, and likely – at least once! – did play it; all you really needed was a brother’s crappy hand-me-down skates, a splintered (yet black electrical taped) hockey stick and just enough ice to wind up your own blazing Bobby Hull slapshot. He Shoots! HE SCORES! WHAAAAA!!!! (…that would be the roar of the crowd).
But Hull may have embodied hockey more than we know; art and athleticism, woven with an expected level of crudeness and violence.
So should we look back at all toward such flawed humans as Bobby Hull, searching for remnants of childhood heroes? Perhaps; though we just might need to squint a little harder.
