Imagine you're 9 or 10 again. You take the Madison St. bus past some city blocks that look like post-war Dresden to get to one building that is downright puny by today's standards, but stands alone like a monolith delivered by the Gods.

You get inside, and you run ahead of your dad up a million stairs until you're up in the second balcony. The place is half empty, but there's already a decent cloud of smoke up near the scoreboard. By the end of the game, the smoke would hang so thick the ice would be on the other side of a haze. Hell, I'm not sure my dad didn't do it himself - I think he'd go through a whole pack of Raleighs during a game.

You could recognize all the players more easily then. The numbers on the sweaters were huge, since there weren't any nameplates. There weren't nearly as many helmets then either. Stan Mikita wore something that looked like a football helmet with the facemask removed, Pit Martin was the only other Hawk who wore one. Pat Stapleton had snow-white hair, Keith Magnuson looked like a mop in a Hawks uniform.

But even during warmups, your eyes were fixed on #9. He was bald, but not bald like your Uncle Dwight, more like John Glenn or Pete Conrad. He made it look badass. He just moved differently too. Almost as if he were a lion amongst alley cats. He'd take his slapshots during practice, and it had a different sound, almost like the sound of a bullwhip. Sometimes the puck would hit the board and it sounded like a gunshot. He had power in his game that hasn't been seen before or since.

Once the game started, every time he hit the ice with Chico Maki as his center, there would be a buzz that wasn't there for any other Hawk, not even Mikita. That's not to say Mikita wasn't great, but Mikita was a virtuoso where Hull was pure rock and roll.

There was no such thing as "The Wave" back when Hull played, but whenever he'd take the puck from behind his own net he'd start up on the wing, picking up speed. As he hit top speed, somewhere over 20 MPH, as he passed sections in the Stadium, everyone would rise.

By the time he'd cross center ice, half the building was on its feet, and the crowd of twenty thousand (although always announced as 16,666) went from a buzz to a rumble. By the time he crossed the blue line into enemy territory the entire crowd was up, and the sound had built to a crescendo as Hull wound up to unleash his shot.

It didn't always go in, but it went in a lot. Bobby Hull was the first player the Blackhawks ever had that was a superstar. Sure, there were some great players, we've chronicled them here. Hull was something else. He had speed like Richard, he was tough like Howe, he had a harder shot than Geoffrion. He was the Mickey Mantle of hockey, this blend of speed and power embodied in the visage of a golden God. Hell, there was nothing else that you could call him but "The Golden Jet".

His personal foibles have certainly been mentioned both here and elsewhere - when my dad took me to Morrie Mages to get my first Blackhawks jersey, I asked for a Bobby Hull, and my dad told me not to get a jersey of a "fucken wife beater", so I got Mikita. However, my first table hockey game was a Munro Bobby Hull game.



But even my dad got to his feet when Hull rushed the puck. He told me we were at a game where someone threw a bowling ball on the ice following a Hull goal, although I don't really remember. Whatever Hawks fans felt about the man, there was no denying how everyone felt about the player.

He was the first NHL player to score more than 50 in a season, first to score 50 more than once. He scored at least 50 4 times, topping off at 58 in the 1968-69 season. In fact, the two years that Mikita did his Triple Crown (Hart, Art Ross, Lady Byng), Hull led the NHL in goals.

He also had run-ins with the Wirtz family. After his 58 goal season, he held out to begin the 1969-70 season. After that, the bad blood never went away. When the World Hockey Association was starting up, they knew they had one of the most exciting players to ever lace up skates who wasn't happy with his ownership. They made their move.

When they approached Hull, they were persistent. Hull wasn't really interested in going, so he told them if they gave him a million dollars, he was theirs. Hull was bluffing, but they called his bluff.

Once he signed the contract with the WHA (and the Winnipeg Jets), the Wirtz family tried to slap a court injunction on Hull and the WHA. Kids like me held out hope that somehow Hull would remain a Blackhawk - we only knew about what happened on the ice.

What Hull did was legitimize the WHA, and gave players options. As a result, they were able to earn a lot more money than they ever had.

When you see Bobby Hull at Blackhawks games now, look beyond the round face and the bad toupee. This was a man who could bring a crowd to its feet.

Here's Bobby scoring #600.