Brett Hull

Why did Brett Hull play for Team USA?

Hull was born in Canada but held American citizenship through his mother, an American figure skater, so both national programmes were entitled to pick him. Canada passed: coach Dave King passed over Hull for the 1986 World Championship, and the American staff invited him in instead. Hull accepted and never played for Canada at any level. From 1986 onwards Hull played for the United States at the 1991 Canada Cup, the 1996 World Cup, the 1998 and 2002 Olympics and the 2004 World Cup. We have told the full story of how that happened.

Is Brett Hull Canadian or American?

Both, and that is the honest answer. Hull was born in Belleville, Ontario, on 9 August 1964, which makes Hull Canadian by birth, and Hull also holds American citizenship through his mother. The dual status is exactly what let Hull choose a national team instead of being assigned one. Hull played his junior hockey in Penticton, British Columbia, then college hockey at Minnesota-Duluth before Calgary signed him into the NHL. Canadian by birth, American by international allegiance, is as short as the answer gets.

Brett Hull and Mike Keenan: the feud that ended his St. Louis years

Mike Keenan arrived in St. Louis in 1994 as both coach and general manager and spent two seasons in open conflict with Hull, taking the captaincy off him and moving out teammates Hull had built his game around. Hull has gone into detail about it, and we have his own account of the worst of the mind games. St. Louis fired Keenan on 19 December 1996. Hull stayed until 1998, then left as a free agent when the Blues would not give him a no-trade clause, signing with Dallas on 2 July 1998.

The foot in the crease goal that won the 1999 Stanley Cup

Hull scored the goal that ended the 1999 Stanley Cup Final at 14:51 of the third overtime of Game 6 against Buffalo, and Sabres fans have never accepted it. Hull's skate was inside the crease when he buried his own rebound, which under the rule as written that season looked like grounds to wave the goal off. The NHL ruled it legal and pointed to a memo sent to teams stating that a player keeping possession of the puck could score from the crease. Dallas got its first Stanley Cup, Buffalo got a grievance that outlived the series.

How many goals did Brett Hull score?

Hull finished with 741 goals in 1,269 NHL games, the third-highest total in league history when he retired and fifth on the all-time list as it stood in 2026, with 650 assists for 1,391 points. The summit was 1990-91, when Hull scored 86 goals in a single season, a figure only Wayne Gretzky has ever beaten, and collected both the Hart Trophy as most valuable player and the Lester B. Pearson Award. Hull had taken the Lady Byng the season before, which is unusual company for a volume scorer.

Bobby Hull and Brett Hull: the only father and son to do it

Bobby Hull scored 610 NHL goals, Brett Hull scored 741, and they remain the only father and son in NHL history to each pass 600 goals or each reach 1,000 points. Bobby Hull won the Hart Trophy in 1965 and 1966, Brett Hull in 1991. When Brett Hull closed out his career with a brief run in Phoenix in 2005, he wore his father's No. 9. Hull has firm opinions on the subject of honoured numbers, and we asked him about retiring them at all.

Brett Hull's route from a sixth-round pick to the Hall of Fame

Calgary drafted Hull 117th overall in 1984, in the sixth round, and never found room for him. On 7 March 1988, the Flames traded Hull and Steve Bozek to St. Louis for Rob Ramage and Rick Wamsley, a deal the Blues still rank among the biggest in franchise history. Hull went on to win Cups in Dallas and Detroit, where he called Pavel Datsyuk the sickest player he had ever seen. The Blues retired his No. 16 on 5 December 2006, and the Hockey Hall of Fame took him in 2009.