Book description
An award-winning writer sets the record straight on hockey's
forgotten golden boy-Bobby Hull
In his prime, few could dispute Bobby Hull's athletic brilliance-the
first to have five 50-goal seasons, the highest scorer on the 1976
Canada Cup team, the first to use the slapshot as a scoring weapon,
and the first hockey player to sign a million-dollar contract. With
his body-builder torso, and his 100 mph volleys across a rink, the
world of hockey glory was his to lose. And he did. With his publicized
marital troubles and his defection from the NHL to the WHA, Hull's
star began to fall, leaving him broke and in exile from the game. In
The Devil and Bobby Hull, this once great hockey player and
pioneer is finally given his due.
Not only are Hull's remarkable on-ice achievements finally put in
perspective, so, too, are his achievements off the rink-including
endorsements for a wide array of products (rare for an NHL player) and
his appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated a record four
times. And the book details how Hull's battle with the owners of the
Chicago Blackhawks-challenging the reserve clause in his contract, a
move that enabled him to move to the WHA-helped other players follow him.
- The author places Hull squarely in the pantheon of other hockey
greats, including Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, and Wayne Gretzky-and
makes the case that he is the game's most influential and
important player
- This is the full, unauthorized story of Hull's life-that doesn't
sidestep the controversies (including the domestic violence
tainting his private life)
- Details Hull's recent reconciliation with the Chicago Blackhawks
A candid look at one of hockey's most gifted and controversial
figures, The Devil and Bobby Hull tells the story of his
extraordinary career and life-and why this remarkable man has not
faded into oblivion.
Gare Joyce is a feature writer and editor at Sportsnet
Magazine, has written for ESPN The Magazine and
espn. com, and was previously the hockey columnist with the Globe
and Mail. Joyce is the author of seven books, including The
Ovechkin Project with Damien Cox (Wiley, 2010). His short
fiction has appeared in an anthology published by Dave Eggers's
McSweeney's group, and his first crime novel, The Code was
published January 2012.
