VIDEO: Dennis Hull, the funniest player ever to wear a St. Catharines Black Hawk jersey

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Published June 3, 2022 at 2:28 pm

Dennis Hull getting his laughs at the podium. (Photo: motivationalspeakers.com)

Let’s clear something up right away. Both Bobby and Dennis Hull played junior hockey in St. Catharines but Dennis was, by far, the most talented Hull ever to don the St. Catharines Black Hawk jersey.

How is that conclusion drawn, especially since most hockey experts would consider Bobby to be the more skilled and certainly more flashy of the brothers?

Simple. When Bobby played for St. Catharines alongside Stan Mikita, the team was called the Teepees. When younger brother Dennis landed in town, they had become the Black Hawks, the notoriously stacked-with-future-NHLers farm team for Chicago.

Dennis, now 77, earned a degree in history and physical education from Brock University, taught at Ridley College, also in St. Catharines and became athletic director at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

But as good an NHL player as Dennis was, he couldn’t emerge from the shadow of his big brother, except in one regard. He was hands-down the funniest after-dinner speaker at various sports’ charity tournaments that the NHL has ever produced.

While Bobby put in his fair share of celebrity appearances, he couldn’t hold a candle to his brother’s natural gift of gab and sly humour, something that made him an All-Star on the post-hockey-career speaker circuit. His cadence is Bob Hope-style corny but infectious nonetheless.

He wrote a book, “The Third Best Hull” meaning behind Bobby and his nephew Brett with the subtitle “I Should Have Been Fourth But They Wouldn’t Let My Sister Maxine Play.”

He was also a prankster. He created a false “scandal” involving fixed horse races at a time when Chicago coach Billy Reay owned a thoroughbred. Soon Reay found himself interrogated by alleged FBI agents in his office while the players howled in the locker room.


Bobby and Dennis on the cover of Maclean’s and Dennis during his St. Catharines days.

Many thought Dennis’ slapshot was every bit as hard as Bobby’s. However, Dennis was quick to point out the flaw. “Someone once said that Bobby could hit a puck through a car wash and not get it wet and that I could hit it just as hard, but not hit the car wash. That was the difference.”

His brother was often the target of his podium humour. During one speech, he noted, “I was watching the TV and saw some idiot driving on the wrong side of Hwy 400. I knew Bobby was on the 400 so I called him and said, ‘Be careful, there’s a guy driving the wrong way on the highway.’ And Bobby replied, ‘One guy? You should see it. There’s hundred of them!!!'”

With Bobby at the head table with him one time, he told the crowd, “We played in an era before the really big money. So we could afford only one set of hair. As you can see, Bobby has it today.”

So, even with a nod to his older brother’s skills, there is little doubt that Dennis was forever the clown prince of hockey.

Here’s a video that touches on his St. Catharines time, as well as his podium humour.

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