My first Christmas gift this year came from . . . me.  On a recent trip to Barnes & Noble I spotted the new book The Golden Jet, written by Bobby Hull with venerable Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Verdi.  I had to get it.  Now that I have, I’m glad I didn’t wait for Santa to bring me a copy on Christmas Day.

The photos are definitely the book’s strong suit.  As a Blackhawks fan since the late ‘60s, I thought I’d seen every photograph of Bobby Hull.  Boy, was I wrong.  The book contains hundreds of photographs completely new to me and, I’d imagine, most fans.  At the same time, Bobby reveals a number of things that somehow had eluded me over the years—such as the fact that, during the 1961-1962 and 1962-1963 seasons, he wore the number 7. I knew about his first uniform number, 16, but not 7.  I also couldn’t help noticing that Bobby chooses to never refer to his ex-wife (Joanne, in case you didn’t know) by name.  Even in the photos in which she appears he refers to her only as “the mother” of his children.

Whenever I find a book like this, I can’t resist pointing out errors, since publishers supposedly employ fact checkers.  I’ve found sports books that are heavy on photos generally come with a fair number of misidentified players.  For all the photos that appear in this book, however, I could find only one mistake—on page 45.  The goaltender is not (the right-handed) Johnny Bower but (the left-handed) Don Simmons Bobby recalls scoring against in Game 6 of the Cup Finals against the Maple Leafs in 1962.

Bobby Hull and Bob Verdi have teamed up on a wonderfully nostalgic profile of one of the most beloved players in Blackhawks history.  This is the essential coffee table book for fans of the Hawks.