Glenn Hall

Glenn Hall grew up in Humbolt, Saskatchewan, and was a child during the Great Depression. Like many communities in North America, money and prospects were scare.  Favourite pastimes, like hockey, need the most basic of equipment to play. Unable to afford pucks, Hall and his friends nailed together frozen cowpies to play with.

From those early days, Hall learned to be a great goaltender. Recognized for his ability, the Detroit Red Wings had signed the goaltending prospect and assigned him to their top farm team, the Edmonton Flyers, back in 1952. Hall soon fell in love with the city and still resides in the area to this day.

Hall is revered as of one of the great names when it comes to goaltending. His NHL record of 502 consecutive games played will likely never be broken and is a testimony to his endurance. Hall was named an NHL All-Star 13 times, a feat that no other goalie in history could match.

After bouncing up and down between Edmonton and Detroit between 1952-55, Hall was finally given the Wings’ starting job at the beginning of the ’55-’56 season. Over the next two full seasons in Detroit, Hall won 68 games and recorded 14 shutouts. In 1956, the NHL named him Rookie of the Year for his outstanding play with the Red Wings. The next year, however, Detroit management accused he and Wings’ captain Ted Lindsay of trying to help form a players’ union, and unceremoniously traded them to the Chicago Blackhawks.

Hall excelled in Chicago; a young team built on the scoring prowess of Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull. In 1961, Hall got the sweetest of revenge on his old Detroit team, when he led the Hawks to a Stanley Cup win over Detroit. In both 1963 and 1967, Hall won the Vezina Trophy as the top goalie in hockey. Five times he was named the MVP of the Blackhawks.

With 1967 expansion, Hall moved onto the brand-new St. Louis Blues franchise. He spent four seasons with the Blues before retiring. He won another Vezina in 1969, and Hall is only one of five players in history to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP but not play for the team that won the Stanley Cup that season. He did that in 1968, when the Blues lost to the Montréal Canadiens in the final.

For all that on-ice success, Hall’s legend was inflated by the fact that he was famous for throwing up before games and between periods.

"I do think the media blew up the fact that I was throwing up," Hall said. "When I threw up, I felt like I was doing what I needed to do to prepare for the game. I felt that if I threw up, I played better."

And even though Hall was always considered one of the game’s top netminders throughout his career, the fear of failure always haunted him.

"There was always the fear that you weren’t going to do well, even though you had done all the things you needed to do to play well. You knew you were quick enough and smart enough and had researched the opposition, but there was still a fear you would not play well."

In 1974, Hall was named to the Edmonton Sports Hall of Fame. A year later, he was inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame. In 1989, Hall got his second Stanley Cup ring, as an assistant coach with the Calgary Flames.

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