Oh, to be a sports consumer in St. Louis these days.

You've got the Rams, their homeboy QB, and their staff of (mostly) sixty-something coaches.

You've got the Cardinals and, in Mark McGwire, perhaps the most compelling sports story to hit (literally!) the midwest in a long time.

And Charlie Spoonhour still reigns supreme in St. Louis...despite the loss of Larry Hughes to the land of million-dollar shoe contracts.

But, in bad news for St. Louis' hardworking (?!) sports media contingent, perhaps the most quotable sports guy in town, Brett Hull, is long gone...having left his Kiel Center home for new digs in Dallas.

[Editor's note: for a bit of quotable Hull, click here]

And now, a week or so after Hull's ride off into the Texas sunset, the most entertaining part of the whole story is reading, and listening to, the multitude of "informed" opinions concerning his departure.

As far as the mainstream St. Louis media are concerned, opinions on Hull can be separated into two groups. Basically, you've got your Hull acolytes...and then there's everyone else.

Opinions are many about the origin and existence of the Hull media acolytes...I have mine and those views are best suited for the St. Louis Sports Online media column.

But say this much for Brett Hull.

It was, in the main, a combination of contributions from men like Hull, Blues execs Ron Caron, Jack Quinn, and Mike Shanahan, and the late Dan Kelly that led to (a) the rebirth of NHL hockey in St. Louis; and (b) the construction of the Kiel Center.

Those are big-time contributions from bigger-than-life personalities...and those types of contributions are of such a scale that they really can't be quantified.

And it is darn near impossible to find a North American hockey fan with a pulse who hasn't been turned on by Brett Hull's exploits as a St. Louis Blue.

In fact, for many years Hull was the main reason to plunk down real dough to watch an NHL game in St. Louis

So good luck to the Golden Brett. With Joe Nieuwendyk and Mike Modano as probable center ice linemates for Hull, he should thank his lucky Stars that the oft-discussed no-trade clause was never offered to him by Blues GM Larry Pleau.

But when all is said and done, the Brett Hull fiasco comes down to this.

Blues management had to ask themselves one simple question.

If the Blues retained Hull...at his asking price and under his proposed contract conditions, was the team in a position to win the Stanley Cup in the 1998-99 season..or perhaps in 1999-2000?

In essence, as the 1998 trading deadline approached...Pleau and his hockey staff held off on any major deals, so that at least a portion of that very question could be asked (and answered) during the 1998 Stanley Cup playoffs.

The question was answered when the Red Wings showed themselves to be completely superior to the Blues--in almost every facet of the game.

As Ron Caron says about Scotty Bowman's club: "They know how to play the game of hockey".

So the 1998 season's results put Pleau and Blues' president Mark Sauer in the position of being able to guess at the answer to the aforementioned question, as it pertained to the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons in the negative...and they decided to let Hull walk.

Indeed, during Hull's decade in St. Louis...the team neveradvanced past the second round of the playoffs.

So Pleau and Sauer had history on their side.

But two additional issues are worth discussing...one pertaining to the Blues and one to Hull.

First, now that Hull is gone...are the Blues more or less likely to win the Cup next season?

Probably less likely.

Hey, it's a fact of life--Iron Mike Keenan's tactics and strategies as GM have left the team in a talent and budget crisis that remains to this day.

And the second issue?

It seems that Brett Hull's decade in St. Louis can be boiled down to the following.

There is no denying that Hull is the best hockey player ever to spend the prime of his career in our town.

But, can Brett Hull as a Blue be compared to Michael Jordan as a Chicago Bull...or can a better comparison be made between Hull and Jordan's teammate, Scottie Pippen?

In other words, as a movie star would Hull get the girl..or is Hull better cast as the guy who helps the star get the girl?

Says here that Brett Hull has a lot more in common with Scottie Pippen than he does with Michael Jordan.

And it certainly is not Hull's fault that Blues' management, for over ten years, couldn't find a hockey-playing Jordan to lead the team to the Cup.

You have to finish last in the league, a feat accomplished by the Quebec Nordiques for several seasons in succession, to do that.