Bobby Hull, who was the first individual to score more than 50 goals during a National Hockey League (NHL) season. An extremely fast left wing with a powerful slap shot, Hull won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player (MVP) in 1965 and 1966. Toward the end of his career he played in the World Hockey Association (WHA), a rival league to the NHL. He was named MVP of that league in 1973 and 1974.

Robert Marvin Hull was born in Pointe Anne, Ontario. He showed NHL potential as a youngster and advanced quickly through the ranks of minor league hockey. At the age of 17, he joined the Chicago Blackhawks for the 1957-58 NHL season. By the 1959-60 season Hull was one of the league’s most dynamic players, leading the NHL in goals (39) and total points (81). During the next 12 seasons he scored 30 or more goals a year, and he was a major factor in the Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup victory in 1961. In the 1965-66 season Hull totaled 54 goals, breaking the record of 50 goals held by Maurice Richard. He went on to lead the league in goals the next three seasons as well.

Hull‘s hockey skills included an incredible skating speed that was recorded at 28.3 mph while handling the puck, and a slap shot that approached the goal net at nearly 120 mph. These abilities, plus his blond hair, gave Hull the nickname the Golden Jet.

In total, Hull recorded 610 goals and 560 assists during 16 seasons of regular-season NHL play. He also recorded 62 goals and 67 assists in the postseason. He was selected to the NHL All-Star team 12 times. Hull added another 303 goals and 335 assists during his time in the WHA. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983.

Brett Hull, one of the National Hockey League’s (NHL) most prolific scorers in the 1990s. A dual citizen of Canada and the United States, Hull played for Team USA in the 1998 Olympic Games at Nagano, Japan, the first Winter Games in which NHL professionals participated.

Hull, who was born in Belleville, Ontario, is the son of Chicago Blackhawks star Bobby Hull, one of the NHL's most feared shooters of the 1960s. Although Brett did not play in one of Canada's major junior hockey leagues, the Calgary Flames drafted him in the sixth round of the 1984 amateur draft. Hull, a right wing, then spent two seasons at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, where as a sophomore he scored 52 goals in 42 games. Following his sophomore season, Hull turned professional and signed a contract with Calgary.

A short, stocky player with great speed and the ability to release shots quickly, Hull spent most of his first full professional season with Moncton (New Brunswick) of the American Hockey League (AHL).

He and his father Bobby (who earned the award in 1965 and 1966) thus became the only father and son in league history to be named NHL MVPs.

Hull remained one of the NHL's best marksmen in the late 1990s and passed the 500-career goal mark during the 1996-97 season. He also became well known as a critic of the NHL's increasingly smothering, defensive style of play, and of top league officials who permitted these tactics to thrive.