Glenn Hall - Mr. Goalie -- History Lesson(1)

They called him Mr. Goalie, the pioneer of “butterfly” goalie style used so widely today. Playing through injury after injury and persevering through over 250 career stitches, this man’s man played 502 games in a row (551 including playoffs) and he did all of this WITHOUT WEARING A FREAKING GOALIE MASK! Seriously, take that in for a second. Imagine the Rocket (Maurice Richard) or Gordie Howe or Alexander Ovechkin (for you younger folk) barreling down on you and knowing you’re the only thing between them and the goal. Do you think they would have cared about your maskless mug? No, they definitely wouldn’t have; but that didn’t stop Hall putting his face in harm’s way.

Hall officially made his mark in the NHL during the 1955-1956 season for the Detroit Red Wings. In his first season in net, Hall recorded 12 shutouts, won the rookie of the year and, of course, played every game.

During his 1957 postseason with the Wings, Hall was netminding a game against the Boston Bruins when he took a slap shot to the mouth that knocked him out cold. That surely would have ended his game and his consecutive game streak, right? Wrong. Instead, the game was delayed about a half an hour for Hall to receive 23 stitches and thus, return to action. For any human to endure that much pain and, say, return a few games later…that would be awesome. This dude returned to a game 30 minutes later with 23 fresh stitches knowing full well that he could be hit in the same spot again! Again, a man’s man. Hell, I’d go as far as a man’s man’s man (if that even makes sense).

At the end of his second season (1956-1957), Hall was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks where he led the team to the 1961 Stanley Cup championship (their last Cup). His consecutive streak finally came to a halt against the Bruins, but had nothing to do with a shot to the face. Instead, as he was tying up his pads before the game, he felt his back go out. He tried to play through it, but eventually pulled himself out.

Before the 1967-68 season, Hall was chosen by Scotty Bowman’s St. Louis Blues in the league’s expansion draft where he would go onto leading the Blues to three straight Stanley Cup Finals, but no championships. Despite being swept 4-0 in the Finals by the Montreal Canadiens, Glenn Hall still won the Conn Smythe as the playoffs most valuable player; one of only five players to win the award on the Finals losing team…and impressive honor to say the least.

Glenn Hall was an awesome goalie and even more awesome for playing 502 consecutive games without a mask. I know people hear the phrase “that record will never be broken,” only to see that record broken a few years later. This record, however, is different and I can assure you that it will never be broken. Outside of knowing the 23 stitches story from my Dad telling me years ago, I really did not know much about Mr. Goalie. I now have a newfound respect for him and now have a better understanding exactly why his #1 is hanging from the rafters at the United Center.

If you have time, I would definitely recommend watching the video below as well.


Sources:
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1004416/1/index.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Hall

Blackhawks History Lesson

With the start of a new blog, ideas for posts and daily/weekly things to cover are flowing. One that came to mind today was giving Hawk fans (and non Hawk fans) a Blackhawks history lesson. I’m thinking about posting something once a week that covers a player, group of players, a certain team, a game or a season and some interesting information about them. Having been born in the early 80s, there are a lot of things I either do not know about or only vaguely remember from my Dad telling me stories about the Hawks during my younger days. Look for something later today on Mr. Goalie, Glenn Hall.

Picture credited to nhluniforms.com

Winter Classic Seating Chart and Prices Announced

Just got news that the NHL has released the seating chart and prices for the 2009 Winter Classic at Wrigley Field. There are only three sets of prices and one undetermined price (for limited view seating) and they are as follows: $325, $275, $75. For clearer information regarding where those prices correspond where seats are, see the picture below:



It also appears that partial season ticket holders (like myself) are not included in the pre-public sale purchase (if there even is a public sale). I am somewhat upset, but at the same time, do understand the need to put Blackhawks, Red Wings and Cubs (because it’s their building) full season ticket holders before people like my friends and I.

As for my thoughts on the whole pricing and seating chart, I am not a big fan. Chances are, it’s probably going to be really cold. I know the odds of me scoring good seats at face value are slim and I definitely do not think it’s worth $600-$1000 to sit in the better seats. If I were able to get my hands on a bleacher seat at $100 or less, then yea, I’ll probably go. Outside of that, I’d rather save the ridiculous sum it is going to cost to sit in a semi-decent seat and use it for airfare, hotel and ticket accommodations for Notre Dame’s bowl game in a warm climate in January. Yes, the Winter Classic at Wrigley is a once in a lifetime event. But I’d rather watch the game on HD television in my warm apartment or listen to it on the radio from a beach in Florida/Arizona/California than pay a greedy ticket scalper $600 to freeze my butt off. Sure, I won’t get to say “I was there,” but that’s no big deal. I’m looking more forward to the day when the Hawks win the Cup at the UC and 20 years after, I can say “I was there.”

Campbell and the Spin-o-rama

There is a lot of complaining going on over on the message boards today regarding Brian Campbell's spin-o-rama gone bad that led to the Wild's 2nd goal last night. I talked about this below, but he was clearly tripped. There's a reason why guys use this move (Denny Savard anyone?) and it always seems to electrify the crowd. One example is shown below when Campbell was with the Sharks.



If you want to complain about Campbell's contract, yea, I get that. But as someone noted on the message boards, it's ridiculous to complain about the guy's on-ice play. Give me a break.

Most Ridiculous Comment on the Blackhawks "Official" Message Board

Since I have made my way back to being an avid follower of the Blackhawks again, I have also had the opportunity over the past year to read the message boards over at the Blackhawks official homepage.

I don’t need to go on any long spiel about how outrageous a lot of people on message boards are because everybody knows this. I try to stay away from reading those boards as possible; it’s just way too frustrating to read what some people say on there. However, I always find myself there because, believe it or not, there are a few people who do have an idea of what they are talking about. Most of the time, though, they are drowned out by all the idiots who love to rip players, blame everyone and panic after each and every loss.

I’ve been around hockey enough to know when a team plays great, good, mediocre, bad and downright abysmal (Trust me, my high school team won a combined 10 games my last two years, I know). It’s a sport and every team is going to have games in each of those categories every year. Why do I bring this up? Mainly because, yes, the Blackhawks, for the most part last night, played pretty mediocre. There were some bright spots, but, mostly mediocre. However, people tend to forget (or not realize or refuse to admit) that they played on the road against a team who has yet to lose a game in regulation (currently the Wild sit at 6-0-1). Is it possible that the Wild are good, possibly really good this year? The Hawks are young (3rd youngest) and it’s something I will return to many times this year. Should they make the playoffs? Yes. Should they win the Cup? No.

So where am I going with this? Because I regretfully find myself on the message boards at some point almost every day, I’m going to introduce a new segment to this new blog: “Most Ridiculous Comment on the Message Board.” I don’t think it really needs much more explaining. So without further ado, I give you today’s most ridiculous comment:

“Campbell is an albtross on defense and he will be the downfall of the team. It is possible this is the worst signing by the Hawks and might make the top three in the NHL.”

I don’t even know where to start. It’s comments like this that get me very frustrated, but I think pointing them out to others to take in may just help ease my frustration.

Hawks fall to Wild 3-2 in Minnesota

The Blackhawks dropped their 2nd game in a row tonight in somewhat frustrating fashion against the Minnesota Wild. The turning point, in my eyes, was when Brian Campbell attempted to do his spin-o-rama in the Wild zone, was tripped and lost the puck. The Wild picked it up, stormed down the ice and somehow slipped the puck past Huet. Admittedly, I think it was a very weak goal on Huet’s part, but I really think the refs missed Campbell getting tripped up.

The Hawks did outshoot the Wild tonight 2 to 1 (36-18), but it seemed most of the shots were from outside the circles with nobody screening Backstrom. To Backstrom’s credit, he did play really well tonight and made the big saves when he needed to, but if the Hawks are going to settle for long distance shots, they need to get bodies in front of the net.

As for Huet, he looked a little shaky again in net and just doesn’t quite look like the same goalie that ended last season on such a hot streak. I don’t think there was much he could have done on the first and third goals, but he just looks a little shaky to me. It’s still too early for me to panic about Huet, but I think this whole mess with him and Khabibulin is affecting him more between the ears and less actually between the pipes. No doubt he has the ability; let’s just hope he finds it sooner than later.

Now a few notes from the game tonight:

-Dave Bolland had a great penalty kill shift during the Wild’s second penalty. He looked like a man on a mission and that’s always a welcome sight.

-Again, I thought Campbell was tripped and it was a bad no call from the referees. You can be the judge from the video below…and you can also watch the second goal again.

-The Hawks did have some good chances on the 5-3, but you just have to bury those chances.

-Duncan Keith’s decision to step up right before he scored their second goal was a great decision. That’s the perfect opportunity to do so.


The Hawks have the rest of the week to prepare for the Stars. The Stars sit at 3-4-2 and host the Wild Wednesday night before they take on the Hawks Friday night at the UC at 7:30pm.

Welcome to Chi-City Hockey!

Let me first take this moment to welcome everyone to the official, unofficial, unofficial, official Blackhawks blog!

So, where to begin? Let’s first get the name of title of the blog out of the way. Why “Chi-city hockey?” Two reasons: 1) Because just about every other name surrounding the Blackhawks, Chicago, Chicago Blackhawks has already been taken in the form of a url. 2) Because Kanye West says it in “Homecoming” numerous times!!! Seriously though, I’m just trying to stay hip and look cool by staying current with Chicago’s most recent nicknames.

So a little bit about me: I’ve been a hockey fan for as long as I can remember. I started playing on the ponds when I was about 6 or 7 and began playing competitively at age 10 when they finally open an ice rink in my hometown. Although I played many sports growing up, hockey has always been and will always be my true passion surrounding the sporting world. It’s the best game to play and is without question the most exciting sport to watch in person. And with HD television bursting onto the scene the past couple of years, you won’t hear many grumblings about not being able to see the puck while taking in a game on TV. (And never will you ever have to witness something like this ever again!)

As far as my NHL knowledge goes, I’d say it is somewhat limited. I paid very little attention to the Blackhawks after the era of Roenick and Belfour passed through the Windy City. Sure, I’d watch the occasional road game on TV (because, as most know, home games were not offered on tv) with Foley broadcasting, but that was about it. However, that all changed last year when the Hawks former owner, Bill Wirtz, passed away, leaving the team in the hands of his son, Rocky. Rocky pulled almost all the right strings during his first few months on the job and just like that, I was back in.

Last year, I attended about 6 games during the season at the UC, which is pretty good considering I did not live in the city at the time. This year, I’m in on a 9-game “Hull” plan with my friends that included this past Saturday’s game against Wings. And despite the SO loss, the game/crowd/play was invigorating and included a record crowd for a regular season Blackhawks game played at the United Center.

So, needless to say, I am extremely excited for this season. A few years ago, the Blackhawks played on 82 nights a year and I maybe caught 2 or 3 of those games. Now, I find myself looking forward, home or road, to every game. That’s 82 nights where I normally wouldn’t have much to look forward to and now will be glued to the radio or tv whenever possible to catch the action. It’s a great time to be a hockey fan and even greater time to be a Blackhawks fan. I’m not sure what direction this blog will head or how often it will be updated, but that’s something I’ll find out as I go.

To leave you with something that will send chills for any current Blackhawk fan, watch the video of the 2007-2008 highlights below. That Matchbox 20 song has been one of my favorites since they showed this video at the last home game last year vs. the Preds (where I had standing room tickets to). LET’S GO HAWKS!