Hall, Glenn

Glenn Hall

1931-

Canadian hockey player

Hockey Hall of Famer Glenn Hall's streak of 502 consecutive games (552, including playoffs) pales in raw number to the baseball streaks of Cal Ripken Jr. (2,632) and Lou Gehrig (2,130). It's not even the longevity mark in his own sport. But Hall's streak, from 1955 to 1962, is extraordinary because, as a goaltender, he played one of the most harrowing positions in sports and for all but his last three seasons, without a facemask. Further, Hall felt nauseous and threw up before most games, and even during intermissions. "You wouldn't think after all this time that I'd still be so afraid of a bad game I'd get sick about it," Hall told William Barry Furlong in Sports Illustrated in 1962.

Hall played for the Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues over eighteen National Hockey League (NHL) seasons. He played for one Stanley Cup champion, won or shared the Vezina Award for best goal-tender three times, won the Calder Memorial Trophy as rookie of the year and the Conn Smythe Trophy as most valuable player of the playoffs. He was an eleven-time all-star and he ranks third in lifetime shutouts with eighty-four. In 1997, The Hockey News rated Hall 16th on its list of hockey's greatest 100 players. Goaltender historians credit Hall with popularizing the "butterfly" style of positioning, which mostly involves a goaltender dropping to his knees and spreading his skates out in a wide "V."

Even in defeat, Hall was sometimes part of history. He allowed the 500th career goal of Montreal Canadiens' great Maurice Richard . He earned his Smythe Trophy when the Blues lost the 1968 finals and two years later, he allowed the picturesque Cup-winning goal by Boston's Bobby Orr , immortalized by television and newspapers capturing Orr celebrating flying through the air, Superman-syle.

Yet, Hall admits he played because he had no other way to make a living. As Boys of Summer author Roger Kahn wrote in the Saturday Evening Post in 1968, "His distaste for play is overwhelming." A former teammate, according to Kahn, said, "Hall's bucket belongs in the Hockey Hall of Fame."

Simple Upbringing

Hall was born and raised in Humboldt, Saskatchewan. In his Sports Illustrated article, Furlong described him as "a stoic family man whose major dream is to settle down and raise cattle." His father was a railroad worker who died on Christmas Day, 1967. Life in the Western Canadian prairies was simple for Hall. He was grateful there was food to eat. "Maybe there wasn't much beyond that, but Dad always made sure we had groceries," he said.

Hall, who played pickup hockey—Canadians called it "shinny"—on local ponds, worked his way through youth and amateur hockey leagues. He married nurse Pauline Patrick, who was impressed that Hall had a car. "We girls knew that a young fellow with his own car was someone substantial," she told Kahn.

Signs with Red Wings

After signing with the Detroit organization, Hall played goal in the minor leagues for Indianapolis and Edmonton. He played six games in 1952-53 and two more in 1954-55 for the parent Red Wings. Detroit in 1955 won its fourth Stanley Cup in six years (the Red Wings and Montreal won all but one of the Stanley Cups in the 1950s), but Hall did not play enough to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup

But Detroit General Manager Jack Adams, feeling Hall was ready, traded star goalie Terry Sawchuk to the Boston Bruins. Hall played all seventy Detroit games that season, sporting a 2.11 goals-against average with twelve shutouts. Montreal, however, reclaimed the Stanley Cup, winning four of five games against the Red Wings in the final.

The following season, Hall's regular season goals-against was a solid 2.24, but Boston upset Detroit in the Stanley Cup semifinals, marking only the third time in ten years the Red Wings did not play for the championship.

In addition, Hall fell into disfavor with Adams, first for reporting late to training camp, then talking back to the general manager in front of the team in the dressing room. Adams, already upset at Detroit's failure to even reach the Cup finals while Montreal won its second straight title en route to five in a row, doled out what he thought was the quintessential punishment: banishment to Chicago, which had finished in last place the four previous years. It was "then known as hockey's Siberia," wrote Brian McFarlane, author of the "Original Six" series and a longtime regular on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Hockey Night in Canada telecasts. Adams accepted Chicago's offer of Johnny Wilson, Forbes Kennedy, Hank Bassen and William Preston for Ted Lindsay and Hall.

Chronology

1931	Born October 3 in Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Canada
1949	Marries Pauline Patrick
1952-53	Makes NHL debut with Detroit Red Wings; registers first shutout
1957	Is traded with Ted Lindsay from Detroit Red Wings to Chicago Blackhawks for John Wilson, Forbes Kennedy, William Preston and Hank Bassen
1961	Backstops Chicago Blackhawks to first Stanley Cup since 1938
1962	Streak of 502 consecutive regular-season games ends
1967	Selected by St. Louis Blues in expansion draft
1971	Retires at age 40 with 2.78 career goals-against average

Years later, Lindsay said union activism triggered the deal. "I was traded because I was behind the formation of the Players Association and the trade happened right after I had my best year as a Red Wings," Lindsay told McFarlane years later. "As for Glenn Hall, I think he was thrown into the deal because he was a Ted Lindsay fan. For the next fifteen years, Hall was the best in the league."

Streaking to a Cup

Though the Blackhawks struggled throughout the 1950s and, in fact, the league had a special draft to stock it with players, Hall and some of the "banished" quality players arrived in Chicago at the right time. The Hawks were building around such up-and-coming stars as forwards Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita , and defenseman Pierre Pilote.

Hall's consecutive-game streak, which started in Detroit, gathered steam in Chicago. "During those years, Glenn Hall was a durable superstar for the Hawks," McFarlane wrote. "Season after season, he never missed a game … He did miss a few preseason games, however; every fall, he'd report to camp as late as possible. 'I'm painting my barn,' was his excuse when the (general) manager called, pleading for him to report. 'Glenn's either got the best-painted barn in Saskatchewan or he's the slowest painter on earth,' the manager would tell reporters."

Hall's streak finally ended on November 7, 1962, when his back tightened up while he allowed a goal to Boston's Murray Oliver at Chicago Stadium. Out he came, and a string of more than 30,000 consecutive minutes in the net ended. (Doug Jarvis, who played center for the Canadiens, Washington Capitals and Hartford Whalers, owns hockey's longevity mark at 964. It ended only when the Whalers—now the Carolina Hurricanes—sent him to the minors in 1987).

In 1961, the Hawks finished third in the regular season, and drew in the opening round of the playoffs the first-place Canadiens, who were going for their sixth straight Stanley Cup championship. Montreal's five in a row is still pro hockey's benchmark. The series turned in the third game, when Murray Balfour's goal gave host Chicago a 2-1 victory in triple overtime and a 2-1 series lead. Hall had lost his shutout when Henri Richard tied the game in the dying seconds of regulation play, but the goalie got his revenge against Richard in overtime, stopping the "Pocket Rocket" on a breakaway. Hall recorded 3-0 shutouts in games five and six as Chicago advanced. "The Habs' dynasty was over," McFarlane wrote. "It was one of hockey's greatest upsets."

Chicago also broke a 2-2 series tie in the final against Hall's old team, the Red Wings, capturing its first championship since 1938 with a 5-1 win in game six in Detroit's Olympia. "What a sweet feeling!" Hall wrote in his foreword to McFarlane's book. "There is no sense of accomplishment quite like it."

To this day, it is the Blackhawks' last championship, though Hall backstopped Chicago to appearances in the 1962 and 1965 finals. In 1967, as hockey teams began alternating goalies, Hall and teammate Denis DeJordy shared the Vezina Trophy, as Chicago's goals-against was the best in the league.

Career Statistics

Yr	Team	GP	Min	W	L	T	GAA	TGA	SHO
CHI: Chicago Blackhawks; DET: Detroit Red Wings; STL: St. Louis Blues.
1952-53	DET	6	360	4	1	1	1.67	10	1
1954-55	DET	2	120	2	0	0	1.00	2	0
1955-56	DET	70	4200	30	24	16	2.10	148	12
1956-57	DET	70	4200	38	20	12	2.24	157	4
1957-58	CHI	70	4200	24	39	7	2.89	202	7
1958-59	CHI	70	4200	28	29	13	2.97	208	1
1959-60	CHI	70	4200	28	29	13	2.57	180	6
1960-61	CHI	70	4200	29	24	17	2.57	180	6
1961-62	CHI	70	4200	31	26	13	2.66	186	9
1962-63	CHI	66	3910	30	20	15	2.55	166	5
1963-64	CHI	65	3860	34	19	11	2.30	148	7
1964-65	CHI	41	2440	18	17	5	2.43	99	4
1965-66	CHI	64	3747	34	21	7	2.63	164	4
1966-67	CHI	32	1664	19	5	5	2.38	66	2
1967-68	STL	49	2858	19	21	9	2.48	118	5
1968-69	STL	41	2354	19	12	8	2.17	85	8
1969-70	STL	18	1010	7	8	3	2.91	49	1
1970-71	STL	32	1761	13	11	8	2.42	71	2
TOTAL		906	53484	407	326	163	2.51	2239	84

League Expands

The NHL doubled its size from six to 12 teams for the 1967-68 season, and Hall, unprotected by Chicago at age thirty-six, found a new home. Rather than develop young players for the long term, the St. Louis Blues, looking for instant success, opted for older players who had won elsewhere. Hall split the net-tending in St. Louis with Jacques Plante , who backstopped Montreal's championship teams in the 1950s and was lured out of retirement. The likes of Dickey Moore and Doug Harvey, both former Montreal mainstays, and others came to St. Louis. The expansion teams comprised a six-team Western Division and were assured a spot in the Stanley Cup final.

The Blues reached the final in their first season and lost four straight, as expected, to Montreal, but all four games were by one goal. Hall is one of only four playoff MVPs from a non-champion since the Conn Smythe Trophy's inception in 1965.

St. Louis also lost four straight in the 1969 and 1970 finals to Montreal and Boston, respectively, and Hall, who finally donned a mask for his last three seasons, retired in 1971 at age 40.

Hall's Legacy

Hall, who in his retirement years has worked part-time as a goalie consultant for the Edmonton Oilers and later the Calgary Flames, both in the Alberta province where he lives, is a throwback to a fondly remembered hockey era, long before the NHL expanded into such places as Anaheim, San Jose and Nashville. "Modern NHL teams, with four and five goaltenders under contract and a full-time reserve on the bench, dressed and ready, couldn't comprehend a time when a single goal-tender went to work every night," Wayne Scanlan wrote in the Ottawa Citizen in November, 2002.

Could a goalie play that many games in a row today? "No," said Hall in 1999, his answer as point blank as many of the shots he faced. "In those days, a goalie had to go the whole nine innings. If one goalkeeper had a bad night, he had to play through. Today, if you're not playing well, another guy who's reasonably good can come in and play half the game."

Awards and Accomplishments

1956	Calder Memorial Trophy for NHL Rookie of the Year
1956, 1961-62, 1967	NHL second-team all-star
1957-58, 1960, 1963-64, 1966, 1969	NHL first-team all-star
1963	Wins Vezina Trophy as top NHL goaltender
1967	Shares Vezina Trophy with Chicago teammate Denis DeJordy
1968	Wins Conn Smythe Trophy as Stanley Cup playoffs MVP
1969	Shares Vezina Trophy with St. Louis teammate Jacques Plante
1975	Inducted into Hockey Hall of Fame

In conjunction with the 2000 NHL All-Star game, held in Toronto, the National Post of Canada asked several former stars and hockey personalities to name their greatest starting six. Orr, Hull and goalies Ken Dryden and Lorne "Gump" Worsley voted for Hall in goal.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Adrahtas, Ted. Glenn Hall: The Man They Call Mr. Goalie. Vancouver: Greystone, 2002.

McFarlane, Brian. The Blackhawks: Brian McFarlane's Original Six. With a foreword by Glenn Hall. Toronto: Stoddart, 2000.

Other

"A Sick Goalie Saves Chicago." Geocities.com. http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum (November 7, 2002).

"Break from Aches in Snowy Toronto a Feel-Good Schtick." National Post Online. http://www.nationalpost.com/ (February 5, 2000).

"Down Memory Lane." Canada's Digital Collections. http://collections.ic.gc.ca/humboldt (November 5, 2002).

"The Greatest Goalie in Hockey." True Blues. http://www.jcs-group.com/trueblues/twenty/hall.html (November 7, 2002).

"The Pre-Backup Backup Plan." Ottawa Citizen. http://www.canada.com/ottawa/sports (November 7, 2002).

Sketch by Paul Burton