Hockey Hall of Famer Bobby Hull died with CTE, researchers say

Russell Lewis | February 19, 2025

The Hall of Fame hockey player Bobby Hull had chronic traumatic encephalopathy — the degenerative neurological disease known as CTE when he died in 2023, according to his family.

Hull, a two-time NHL most valuable player and Stanley Cup winner, was known as “The Golden Jet” for his electric play, bruising hits and marvelous goal-scoring abilities. His career spanned more than two decades, mostly in the 1960s and 70s with the Chicago Blackhawks.

His wife released the results of his post-mortem brain tissue analysis on Wednesday through the Concussion Legacy Foundation. In a news release, the organization says it hopes to raise awareness for the long-term effects of repetitive head impacts in hockey and encourage support for research. Hull’s family donated his brain to the Boston University CTE Center after he passed away in 2023 at age 84.

Deborah Hull said her husband felt strongly that no family should have endure CTE. “He insisted on donating his brain, feeling as though it was his duty to help advance research on this agonizing disease.” She said her husband knew his Hall of Fame career came with a price. In the last decade of his life, she says he struggled with many cognitive symptoms of CTE, such as short-term memory loss and impaired judgment.

CTE can only be diagnosed with an autopsy of the brain, meaning it can only be detected after death.

Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks skates down the ice with the puck during a hockey game against the Boston Bruins on Jan. 7, 1968. Hull would become one of the National Hockey League's 100 greatest players. His wife says repeated collisions during his Hall of Fame career led to his post-mortem diagnosis of CTE. — Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks skates down the ice with the puck during a hockey game against the Boston Bruins on Jan. 7, 1968. Hull would become one of the National Hockey League’s 100 greatest players. His wife says repeated collisions during his Hall of Fame career led to his post-mortem diagnosis of CTE. (Associated Press File Photo | AP)

As NPR reported in 2024, the link between American football and CTE is well-known. But research on other sports had lagged behind, even for contact sports like ice hockey. That changed in December when researchers at Boston University completed the largest study to date establishing a relationship between an athlete’s odds of developing CTE and the length of their career in ice hockey (Hull’s was one of the brains in the study). The authors determined the longer an athlete played, the more likely he was to have the disease.

Hull is the highest-profile former NHL player to be diagnosed with CTE.

NPR’s Becky Sullivan contributed reporting.