Bye Bye, Bobby
When Rocky Wirtz took over control of the Blackhawks, one of the more interesting moves made — before the team became a dynasty — was embracing the team’s past.
The Blackhawks brought back some of the legends in the history of the franchise and made them ambassadors. Stan Mikita, Tony Esposito, Denis Savard and Bobby Hull were brought together, after many years away in the case of Hull, to remind fans of what the franchise stood for in the past. The greatness on the ice.
They skated out and lined up next to teenagers named Toews and Kane in full uniform. They showed up to games, signed autographs, dropped pucks and did all of the things fans loved.
Sadly, only two of those ambassadors are still with us. Mikita and Esposito have passed away in recent years, leaving us with Savard and Hull. Chris Chelios was named an ambassador in 2018, joining the group.
Now, the Blackhawks are reportedly moving in a new direction with the ambassador role, and they’re doing it without Hull involved.
According to a report from Bruce Levine on 670 The Score on Monday morning, the Blackhawks and Hull are parting ways amicably as the team moves forward with a new version of their ambassador program.
From #Blackhawks:
— John Dietz (@johndietzdh) February 21, 2022
“We’re redefining the role of team ambassador, which unfortunately comes on the heels of losing 2 very special members of that family. When it comes to Bobby, specifically, we jointly agreed earlier this season that he will retire from any official team role.”
Bye bye blackhawks i have stop going stopped my season tickets disrespect the past listen to someone who wasnt t a first round pick couldnt hack it in the nhl a piece of shit i dont the back the woke narrative
Too bad ! Bobby was the greatest player in the world for that decade of the 60’s ! He tore up the record book and was always giving of his time to sign autographs and do interviews ! He was the premier player that I saw live at 4 of the 6 arenas ! A really great individual and he really was the Golden Jet ! POPS
I never saw Bobby Hull play. I was blessed to see his son, Brett. But, the legend of “The Golden Jet” is intertwined with the Blackhawks organ-I-zation. Sure, he was brash and left the team because of salary. Dollar Bill Wirtz in action. C’est la vie with the Wirtz Family.
If Bobby is stepping aside because of health and age then…fine. Who doesn’t understand and empathize with that decision. If it’s because the organ-I-zation is continuing in it’s “woke” pursuits then it’s just another irritant in the eyes of those of us who have been around for decades. Faithful in our love of The Indian Head Sweater and those players we deem(ed) worthy of wearing it and representing it. Not all are HOF players and not all have their numbers retired, or will have them retired. They came to the rink and personified what we expected from them. Hard work, Hard checks, dedication, and all in for “the team”. My personal all-time favorite Blackhawk is Steve Larmer. He was the personification of everything it means to wear the Indian Head Sweater. Kirby Dach would do well to look at Larmer as someone to emulate.
I wish Bobby Hull well. He is one of the greatest Blackhawks of all time…and deservedly so. God bless, good sir. You are an ambassador of this team, officially or not. The Pantheon of Blackhawks Greatness starts with you, Stan Mikita, and Pierre Pilote. Everyone else aspired to be like you. It doesn’t get much better than that.
let bobby rest and enjoy. maybe his health isn’t all the best and doesn’t want to get sick from covide 4.5. that said, let’s reflect on who they could get to replace the great 3;
tony amonte
kyle calder
eric daze
Alexander Karpovtsev
Boris Mironov
Alex Zhamnov
Igor Korolev
Tuomo Ruutu
Mikhail Yakubov
Pavel Vorobiev
just naming a few that most would know. these names really helped winning over the fan base and yes made the hawks champions in the future.
Supposedly Sunday he was at the Palace Grill on Madison signing autographs for SIX hours. Is Rocky morphing into his father?? Another kick in the gut for old time fans.
HOF player, but a horrible human who was a drunk & beat his wife, convicted of assaulting a police officer.
I wish no ill will to him at all, but an ambassador he is not.
Give it to Larms.
Rocky has changed a lot since he first took over! I hope that he hasn’t forgotten what the fan’s feelings were before he took over!
stefanie
you are completely right about bobby’s past, but a very harsh way to go. there are many hockey players over the years who were lousy human beings. many worse than bobby. doctors as well. and lawyers and everywhere else you want to look in every profession. likely he was not aware or part of the coverup of the 2010 episode. do you believe the hawks of that team are all blameless? should the current heroes who were aware be banished as well? there are likely a couple who still play for the hawks.
it is also just as true that bobby was a wonderful ambassador to the fans. there are many fans of the hawks who are newbies and not aware of his past. only aware of how friendly he was when they had an opportunity to meet him. did it occur to you that maybe he isn’t that guy anymore? doesn’t excuse his past, but this is a forgiving country. or used to be at least. i cannot speak to beating one’s wife and certainly find that abhorrent behavior, but i can speak to alcoholism and that is a disease. wondering how active blackhawks management was back in the day to assist bobby in finding help for his disease. i am normally pretty much in line with your opinions stefanie, but guessing you don’t go around outing all of the other drunks and miscreants in sports as a matter of course and also that you would not have posted this had this pathetic excuse for management not kicked hull to the curb after looking past his alcoholic behavior when it served their purposes. now that they are forced into cleaning up their image hull is no longer good enough for their purposes.
it is very easy to stand in judgment stefanie. do you have a list of hawks you are ready to jump all over once hawks management decide they are personna non grata?
Hawks29, as a survivor of abuse I can have my opinions as you do yours. thanks.
I don’t have a list. I have one person I’d like to see back here in an ambassador role, and it’s Brent Seabrook.
Also, thanks for telling me it’s ‘easy to stand in judgement’ when you are standing in judgement of *my* opinion.
To each their own.
Hawks29: Good post.
Stephanie: Not saying Hull was a saint in his personal life but if he was such a horrible human then why did his second wife remarry him and subject herself to that “abuse” and the 3rd wife never pressed charges?? We weren’t there so we don’t know what really happened and back in that era there was not the resources for dealing with those issues that we have today and if we really want to be critical: we support and root for an organization that owns a national alcohol distribution company. That entices people when attendance is down to offer “Beer Packs” for $50 for 2 beers and a seat.
Hammer do you realize how many times women return to abusive situations feeling trapped or haven’t reported abuse because of fear, being stigmatized or think or are convinced it’s best for the kids if they don’t. That is not an uncommon occurence at all what you say.
This will be remembered as a business decision that needed to happen not a personal one if in fact Hull didn’t step aside on his own.
Ian: This is the same organization that employs an Asst. Hockey Coach that abused his own players when he was a head coach.
Good response Stephanie-glad your a Hawk fan.
Most important change is at the top-GM and upper management, then the right coach.
Hammer very true, does the fact that Crawford admitted what he did, apologized publicly and went for counseling change anything.
He admitted his mistakes and took actions for it. He will never be a head coach again.
Hammer you may be right, who knows after the season is over and King probably goes back to Rfd., they may part ways with Crawford too. I’m not trying to sing Crawfords praises or suggest this organization has traded in it’s horns for wings. They are an organization that has had alot of self inflicted bad pr, quite likely they may have felt keeping Hull around was continuing to do so. Do they feel the same about Crawford, who knows, likely be more than just one or 2 moves coming in next few months.
To me, Bobby of the last few years seemed like a drunken buffoon in the suite when they’d show him with Stan and Tony. Don’t know if he was a better person or not lately, but he seemed like a drunk slob and I kind of cringed when they’d show him on the big screen. Just my opinion. His son is kind of an alcoholic embarrassment to say the least. Really made a fool out of himself when the Blues won the Cup.
That doesn’t mean people can’t still revere him as a Blackhawk, or that his statue should be taken down, or anything like that. I do agree that it was a business decision that had to be done and that his past of (reported) abuse and racism caught up to him in these times.
People can complain about cancel or woke culture, but things are what they are. They’re not going to change.
Blackhawks are trying to wise up, bit by bit, and there will be hard decisions. I’m always going to be for the club keeping the logo. But there is going to be pressure to remove it, regardless of any efforts to make agreements with Native American tribes.
Things weren’t helped by creepy Rocky breaking from the ranks and going all nutty old billionaire at the Town Hall.
Cleaning house in the organization, which may mean cleaning house on the ice.
All I will say is when Bobby Hull got the puck nobody in the Stadium was sitting down. He was electric when he skated with the puck and everyone was in awe. I say this because I saw it live and in person. I judge Robert Marvin Hull as the best hockey player the Hawks ever had.
I stand with Stefanie
Bobby was my favourite player growing up until I found out he was a wife beater about age 13 – I was crushed at the time
Hammer – on average it takes a woman 7 attempts to leave an abusive relationship before she finally succeeds for good -7!!
Let’s not forget Bobby’s pro-Hitler comments – that alone should have been enough to disqualify him from ambassador status
I don’t want his statue taken down but it was always a bad look to have an alcoholic wife beating Nazi sympathizer as your ambassador no matter how many autographs he signed
Loved Bobby the player but not the person
The Hawks could have done more to help him but we now know that helping people has not been a strength of the Rocky Wirtz era Hawks
I wish him well but see ya later
Wrap, bingo. And much better articulated than me.
I take nothing away from Bobby as a player. I don’t want his statue gone, I don’t want him forgotten, or treated badly, nor do I wish him ill will (I know I put that the 1st time)–
Just like I’d choose Seabs & Toews over Sharp & Kane from the 2010s. Merely an opinion.
Defending Stefanie. Around 1971 we had a carpenter doing work in our home. He told me that he did jobs at Hull’s house and heard that he beat his wife. Hull was my hockey hero for years but I was not happy he was the Blackhawks’ ambassador. Finally doing the right thing and cutting ties with him.
Without a doubt, one of the greatest players in hockey history…and an extremely flawed Human Being. my guess is that Hull is too old to be showing up for games regularly, or showing up on the ice for pre-game ceremonies. This is why I feel that Roenick likely will never be an Ambassador. Roenick is known to enjoy his drink, and has made some stupid comments himself. That is not about being “Woke”, it’s about a little decency, and we all know the Blackhawks could exercise some decency about now.
Emily’s Dad, totally agree. I too was at many, many games when Bobby Hull was on the ice. You could feel the old Stadium come alive from the ice to the rafters in the nose bleed section.
Goldenrug
-good recap and all that needs to be said. It is certainly time to move on from one of best on ice Blackhawk players of all time. Grew up not far from where he was born and enjoyed having a Hull poster on my wall in the mid to late 70s. That was then….
I take it most of you have zero forgiveness and the thought that Hull changed, learned from his mistakes and perhaps is very remorseful in regards to his past. But none of that matters does it ?? Then you should apply that to Kane, beating up a cab driver when he was drunk, and Toews for being a douchebag of a captain for not standing up for an abused teammate in Kyle Beach. None of you give a crap about that do you. None of you believe a person can change and grow do you ?? Your comments are loud and clear…and your perfect fans for an organization that covers up such crimes…..congrats.
Bobby Hull is the greatest Chicago Blackhawk – of all time! I watch games now and think that Bobby Hull would have been the best player in the NHL right now. In my opinion, he is one of the 5 greatest hockey players of all time along with Gretzky, Super Mario, Bobby Orr, and Jaromir Jagr! However…
I knew he was a boozer, most players are/were…I don’t agree, but I understand. But, I never knew that he beat his wife and was a Hitler guy. Since I didn’t know about this part of his background, I’m sure others didn’t know either. The only thing I would have done differently is just have Bobby go away more quietly and without this much fanfare. They could have called the ambassador obligations too stressful for an older man. They and he didn’t need this, but now I agree he did need to go!
@Beer
I have said from the first moment that the vets on the 2010 team all knew about Kyle Beach and his situation, but they didn’t care to do anything about it. I will give Toews one excuse to this, and that is that he was too young to be the captain. I knew that he was King of the Boozers and Womanizers on that team. He was not mature enough to be captain. The captain should have been Hossa, but it was still a douchebag move on Toews’ part not to stick up for the kid(Beach), and that should bother him the rest of his life! It would devastate me!
Everyone thinking that a 19 or 20 year old kid like Kane or Toews, when the only message the McDonough front office gave them was shut up and play and we will handle everything else, should have stepped out of their lane and taken care of a situation that was basically a rumor, gotten the police involved, prosecuted the guilty, and resurrected Beach’s career, are all kidding yourselves and have lost touch with reality.
McDonough was a strong, powerful, power wielding leader and no one was going to step out of line and question him. Not to mention that even the most mature kid that age is very likely not capable of doing what you now expect them to have done 12 years later. You have zero perspective. Let’s share some of the dumb stuff you all did at that age and judge how you would have handled yourselves.