Brett Hull scored an incredible 741 goals in 18 seasons in the NHL. The St Louis Blues legend and Hall of Fame forward’s still 38 goals ahead of Alex Ovechkin in his chase for the top spots on the All time scoring list.
There’s a big difference though in the way Ovechkin and Hull celebrates their goals. While Ovechkin celebrates each goal like it is his first, Hull was more calm and sometimes almost unaffected.
On The Hockey News podcast, Hull reveals why he never celebrated a goal. And it sure is a great explanation.
Speaking on the Iron Mike Keenan Podcast by The Hockey News, Scott Morrison and Mike Keenan asked Hull if he actually celebrated after scoring.
“Internally absolutely, it’s the greatest feeling in the world when you score at home and you got 20 000 people and you know they are all going crazy because of what you just did,” Hull said. “But it’s almost better when you can’t hear 20 000 people on the road. Because you just did the same thing.”
Hull won two Stanley Cups, one with Dallas and one with Detroit, and also brought home a gold medal in the 1996 World Cup.
Not only did he enjoy hearing zero people celebrating a goal while being on the road.
At the same time, Hull realizes, since he wasn’t the biggest guy on the ice, that a “celly” could come back and haunt him later.
“I wanted to be completely invisible out there or tried not to celebrate. If I embarrass Chris Chelios by celebrating and acting and he’s gotta go back to he bench and there’s Mike Keenan going ‘Chelios, what the hell are you doing out there’. Now he’s going ‘now I’m going to kill Hull the next shift’. I don’t want that”, he said.
Alex Ovechkin still has some goals to tie Wayne Gretzky as the greatest NHL goalscorer in history.
It is possible that he will do it, according to Hull. And in that case, there are plenty of more celebrations from the Russian super star to come.
“I always liked to change after I scored and get right back out there just to get out of their minds”. But Ovechkin is like 6’2 I’m sure. He doesn’t have anything to worry about”, Hull once said on The Hockey News podcast.
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