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
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