#glennhall

Bobby Hull scored four goals and Glenn Hall stopped 55 shots as the Chicago Blackhawks stormed back from a 3-0 deficit to beat the Detroit Red Wings 7-4 at the Olympia on Feb. 1, 1962. Hull’s outburst pushed him toward his first 50-goal season, while Hall’s heroics frustrated a Detroit lineup led by Gordie Howe and Alex Delvecchio. 🏒🔥

Before I write one more word on today's subject, the great Glenn Hall, also known as "Mr. Goalie" to anyone with even a passing familiarity with the National Hockey League and its storied past, I feel compelled to confess that I am anything but an impartial observer.

I grew up in the suburbs of New York City in the 50s and 60s. So I not only started going to New York Rangers games in the Original Six years, when Hall was the goalie for the Chicago Blackhawks (1956-67) but I was also a goalie, a position I continued to play through my years in college. 

Glenn Hall was and still is my idol. He holds a record that that we can say with certainly will never be broken: For more than seven years, he never missed a game. Between the start of the 1955 season and the night of November 7, 1962, Hall played 502 consecutive games. It was actually 552, if his 49 playoff games are included in the equation, but the NHL doesn't count the post-season in its tabulations. And it goes without saying that they don't count the games he played in his minor league career, which inflates the number to 881.

And he did it all without a mask, his face bearing the scars of the 250 stitches he sustained during his career.

"Our first priority was staying alive," Hall once said, "our second was stopping the puck."

All of which is a prelude to a visit I made with my two sons to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto last summer. As we wandered around, soaking in the exhibits devoted to all the greats of the game--including some of Hall's goaltending contemporaries, like Jacques Plante, Terry Sawchuk and Johnny Bower, I eagerly anticipated what I was sure would be a terrific exhibit devoted to Hall.

I not only didn't find it, but the staff on hand at the Hall of Fame that day weren't much help in explaining why.

I asked a young girl on duty on the first floor about where it might be. After I repeated Hall's name a third time, she looked at me as if I'd sprouted a second head and asked me if I was "sure that he's in the Hall of Fame."

Incredulous, I turned to another attendant, a young man, who shrugged his shoulders and mumbled something about the only permanent exhibits being the Big 4--Orr, Howe, Gretzky and Lemieux--and that everyone else gets rotated to mothballs for periods of time.

I found this hard to believe. So I sent an email to the folks at the Hall of Fame and also contacted my friend Tom Adrahtas, another old goalie and unabashed fan of Hall who wrote Glenn's biography, Glenn Hall; The Man They Call Mr. Goalie, which was published in 2002. 

Adrahtas weighed right in, urging the Hall of Fame to create an exhibit that is much deserved and so long overdue.

The good news is that they were receptive to the idea and Hall, whose brilliance during his career between the pipes is exceeded only by his humility and self-effacing sense of humor, is in the process of gathering some artifacts and old equipment from his career. Adrahtas is hoping to have all of it delivered to the Hall of Fame by February 1, with the exhibit tentatively scheduled to open sometime this summer.

Better late than never. And I can't wait to visit the Hall of Fame once Mr. Goalie's exhibit is in place.