B Bennett/Getty Images
Glenn Hall, who died on Wednesday in Alberta at age 94, left a wide-ranging legacy of performance and personality from his hockey career, but two qualities made him distinct: his superhuman endurance and his ritual of the pre-game upchuck.
Known as “Mr. Goalie” in Chicago, where he played 618 of his 906 regular-season National Hockey League games, he set what is widely regarded as the most unbreakable record in team sports: a streak of 502 consecutive complete games and 30,140 minutes from October 1955 through November 1962.
To surpass that now, a netminder would have to play every minute of every game for a little over six seasons – and no one has tended goal for one entire NHL season since 1964.
Mr. Hall was not just any goalie during that streak but the league’s most decorated, earning selection to the First All-Star Team four times and Second All-Star Team thrice in the eight seasons that spanned his “ironman” accomplishment. While he would enjoy only one Stanley Cup triumph over 16 full NHL seasons, it was his heroic performance in the victorious spring of 1961 that provided the Black Hawks with their only title between 1938 and 2010.
Unknown outside the dressing room was the other nickname bestowed upon “Mr. Goalie” by Chicago teammate and fellow Saskatchewan product Ed Litzenberger. Mr. Hall’s habit of vomiting shortly before a game started was common knowledge, but only his teammates took to calling him “The Ghoulie” for it. Goaltenders were often regarded as eccentric neurotics – with ample precedent to solidify the stereotype – and this ritual was seen by many as the ultimate expression of anxiety. Over the long term, however, Mr. Hall was one of the most relaxed and friendly men among the nerve-riddled fraternity.
“They talk about me throwing up before a game as a weakness,” Mr. Hall once said. “I’ve always looked at that as one of the great strengths I had. I didn’t take things home with me after a game too much.”
Toronto Maple Leaf Eddie Shack (23) tries to line-drive smash at the puck, behind Red Kelly (4) with Chicago's Glenn Hall, Matt Ravlich and Fred Stanfield (6), on Dec. 25, 1965, at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.John Maiola/The Globe and Mail
Nor was Mr. Hall sensitive to verbal abuse from spectators, unlike his peer Jacques Plante.
“When I was playing, I’d only hear one guy in the stands,” Mr. Hall once said. “He was the guy who’d say, “Beeeeeer! Get your cold beeeeeer!”
Mr. Hall had other singular habits, like reciting Robert Service’s poetry or taking a volume of an encyclopedia as reading material on a road trip. He would doze off on train rides or flights en route to a game, dream he was playing, and suddenly fling an arm or leg at a puck that existed only in his mind. (“Nice save,” a nearby teammate would frequently remark.) Once in bed after a game, though, he would sleep the sleep of an innocent, comatose zombie.
While Mr. Plante was goaltending’s greatest innovator, Mr. Hall’s contributions to the position’s development are enormous as well. He was the first to habitually skate to the bench to be replaced by an extra skater during an opponent’s delayed penalty, a practice that quickly became and has remained standard procedure. Most important, he was the first practitioner of the “butterfly” method of stopping shots that evolved into the style used almost universally in the sport today.
All in all, it was quite a noteworthy career for a kid who grew up playing hockey for the fun of it, with no designs on becoming a goaltender.
Glenn Henry Hall was born in Humboldt, Sask., on Oct. 3, 1931. He took his turn between the pipes while playing local pickup hockey, but his preference for playing forward and defence allowed him to develop good skating skills.
It wasn’t until he was playing juvenile hockey in 1948 at the age of 16 that fate beckoned him toward a professional career. The Humboldt Indians, last in the six-team Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League with a 6-16-1 record, had their goalie quit on them and Glenn’s cousin Howard Hall, an Indians forward, recommended him as a fill-in for the season’s last five games.
Pressed into service because the team had no viable alternative, Glenn posted a 3.40 goals-against average – a decided improvement on his predecessor’s 5.74 – and Humboldt won all five contests to make the playoffs. After a full season with the Indians, who were an affiliate of the Detroit Red Wings, Mr. Hall was transferred to the parent team’s elite junior club in Windsor, Ont. It was while with the Spitfires that he began his pregame vomiting, not out of fear but to shake off his sense of overexcitement.
Then-St. Louis Blues goalie Glenn Hall, top right, is pinned to his net waiting to make a save on a Montreal Canadians shot in the third period of their NHL hockey Stanley Cup game, May 5, 1968.Fred Waters/The Associated Press
Two seasons in Windsor also provided the opportunity to watch NHL games in neighbouring Detroit. Of all the goalies he saw, none impressed him so much as Chuck Rayner of the New York Rangers, whose strong and deft handling of his stick allowed him to direct low, hard shots harmlessly into the corners of the rink. Mr. Hall tried to imitate the veteran but lacked the strength, so he compensated by developing the “butterfly” technique: knees on the ice, shins turned diagonally from the shooter, and stick blade on the ice. The stick, backed by the pads, easily redirected shots to the corners when necessary. Low shots away from the stick struck the pads and were quickly smothered, and Mr. Hall’s left hand could snare pucks both high and low in an unconventional fashion that worried Spitfires coach Jimmy Skinner.
“What if you let one in?” he asked his goaltender.
“Talk to me after I let one in.”
That conversation was never resumed. Mr. Hall’s athleticism was extraordinary. He would remain in a basic stand-up stance unless a short-range shot came his way. Side-to-side movement was augmented with spins. If human traffic or his own movements moved him backward or off-balance, he would grab the crossbar of the net with his glove hand and lift himself upright.
He finished his junior days as the most valuable player in the Ontario Hockey Association but, rather than go to the NHL, he served a four-year term in the minor leagues because the Red Wings’ Terry Sawchuk was in the midst of arguably the greatest five-year stretch of goaltending ever exhibited. Mr. Hall spent all of his first pro season with the Indianapolis Capitols of the American League and, save for two brief call-ups to Detroit when Mr. Sawchuk was injured, the next three with a powerhouse Edmonton Flyers squad in the Western Hockey League. Reliability had already become his hallmark: In his four minor-league seasons, the only games he missed involved playing with, joining, or returning from the Red Wings. (In fact, Mr. Hall played every minute of every regular-season and playoff game for the first 11 years and one month of his professional career, a span of 881 contests.) He received his permanent promotion to Detroit after Mr. Sawchuk was traded to the Boston Bruins in the summer of 1955. Mr. Hall earned the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s outstanding rookie in his first season and First All-Star Team honours in his second.
His career took a sudden turn early in the second game of the 1957 semi-finals, however, when a wrist shot from Boston’s Vic Stasiuk smashed the right side of Mr. Hall’s mouth. After a half-hour delay to receive 18 stitches, Mr. Hall returned to the ice to make 30 saves in a 7-2 victory and played out the series with blackened eyes and a swollen face as the Bruins prevailed. Red Wings general manager Jack Adams accused his goaltender of being “puck-shy” and traded him to Chicago, then the junkyard of the NHL.
Mr. Hall’s goals-against average swelled from 2.21 to 2.86 as the Black Hawks were outshot in 55 of their 70 contests in 1957-58, the only campaign in which his team would not make the playoffs, and he was again voted to the First All-Star Team. Chicago quickly improved with the arrival of offensive stars Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull, defencemen Pierre Pilote and Moose Vasko, and solid two-way forwards including Bill Hay, Murray Balfour and Ken Wharram. In 1960-61 the Black Hawks posted their first winning record in 15 years and met the powerhouse Montreal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup semi-finals. After splitting the first two games in Montreal, the teams engaged in one of the most dramatic classics of the pre-expansion era at Chicago Stadium. Mr. Hall’s work in the third overtime period was miraculous: a kick save on Jean Béliveau from point-blank range during a Montreal power play, stoning Henri Richard on a breakaway, and a glove grab on Claude Provost on another breakaway. Finally Mr. Balfour connected in the 53rd minute of overtime for a 2-1 Chicago victory made possible by Mr. Hall’s 53 saves. He made 55 stops in a 5-2 defeat in Game 4 but followed with consecutive 3-0 shutouts to end Montreal’s five-year championship dynasty.
Former Chicago Blackhawk players, from left, Eric Nesterenko, Bill 'Red' Hay, Stan Mikita and Glenn Hall.Charles Cherney/The Canadian Press
That performance, followed by limiting the Red Wings to 10 goals over six games in the final, made Mr. Hall the undisputed hero of the Black Hawks’ championship and popularized the “Mr. Goalie” nickname in Chicago.
The talent-rich Black Hawks never mastered the nuances of team defence as did the Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs, who would monopolize the Stanley Cup for the rest of the Sixties. Nevertheless, Mr. Hall remained the stuff of legend as he earned All-Star Team recognition 11 times, First All-Star Team selection seven times, and All-Star Game participation 13 times – all records for goaltenders that still stand.
As with any good legend, the stories behind the facts picked up embellishment along the way. Most notable was the barn on the farm he purchased near Stony Plain, Alta., about 30 kilometres west of Edmonton. Late in his career, it was said, he always put off painting his barn until September so he would have an excuse to report late to training camp.
In fact, the story grew out of a misunderstanding in 1965, the year Mr. Hall and his wife, Pauline Hall (née Patrick), moved to the farm. Never keen on practice or training camp – due in large measure to the danger of Bobby and Dennis Hull’s high slapshots – the goaltender was secretly given permission to report late by coach Billy Reay. When a reporter called the farm for an interview and got Pauline on the phone, her husband ducked out of the room.
“Tell him I’m out painting the barn,” Mr. Hall told his wife. The reporter drew his own conclusions and the legend was born.
Despite receiving nearly 300 stitches on his face and enduring the terror of the modern slapshot, Mr. Hall was slow to adopt facial protection, wearing a mask only in practice while with the Black Hawks. It wasn’t until the 1968-69 season, a year after he had been selected by the St. Louis Blues in the first expansion draft, that he took to protecting his face during games. Neither the equipment change nor his age diminished his performance. St. Louis reached the Stanley Cup final in all of its first three seasons, only to be swept by the Canadiens (twice) and Boston Bruins. Mr. Hall’s heroic work in 1968 was rewarded with the Conn Smythe Trophy as the postseason’s most valuable player, an honour he surely would have received in 1961 had the award been in existence (which it wasn’t until 1965).
His last moment of historic significance occurred on May 10, 1970, when Bobby Orr scored on him from point-blank range for what is undoubtedly hockey’s most replayed goal. Mr. Hall retired a year later with a career goals-against average of 2.49 and 84 shutouts.
Glenn and Pauline settled down on the farm, with Glenn taking seasonal work for a couple of decades as an assistant coach, sometimes mentoring young goaltenders who had idolized him as kids. Glenn Hall had his name inscribed on the Stanley Cup a second time in 1989 as the Calgary Flames’ goaltending consultant.
Mr. Hall was predeceased by his wife in 2009 and leaves his children, Pat Hall, Lindsay Hall, Leslie Stevenson and Tammy Mennie; as well as nine grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.