cheeked youth of 21. And young Terry Sawchuk was just embarking on a career in the far-flung Detroit hockey system. So with talent like that on hand, and likely to remain solidly entrenched for at least 10 years, young Hall’s prospects didn’t look very hopeful. They weren’t improved much a year later when he was taken from junior ranks in his home town of Humboldt, Sask., and sent to play for Detroit’s key amateur farm team, the Windsor Spitfires, of the Ontario Hockey associations junior series. And yet, today, six seasons later, Hall, as skinny and as undernourished as he was back in ’48, is Detroit‘s first-string goalie. Jack Adams, the jovial puppeteer of hockey in Detroit, has become famous as the game’s shrewdest trader, especially in goal-keeping talent. Earliest instance of this talent was in the prewar years when he had two fine goalies in camp, Normie Smith and Walter (Turk) Broda. He kept Smith and Normie went on to have some great seasons with the Wings. Broda, of course, was dealt to Toronto Maple Leafs and became the “fabulous fat man,” perhaps the greatest goalie of all time in games where big things like Stanley Cups or league championships were at stake.

 

After hockey passed through the uncertain war years, the Detroit goalie was Harry Lumley. But despite Lumley's proficiency in the Detroit. net, he lasted only as long as it took Terry Sawchuk to learn the trade. In 1949 Sawchuk was pronounced ready and Lumley was traded to Chicago Black Hawks to make room for the newcomer. Lumley subsequently was bartered to Toronto and still is among the best in the business.

 

Sawchuk lasted only five seasons at Detroit, even though he was the league-leading goalie in three of those campaigns. As soon as Hall was fully prepared, Sawchuk, who was statistically the best in the league, was traded to Boston Bruins.

 

Actually the decision to promote Hall was partly forced on Detroit by the Bruins. Never dreaming that Sawchuk might be available, they made an offer for Hall, who was performing phenomenal goal-keeping feats in the minor leagues. The Wings, after a bit of thought, said: “What will you give for Sawchuk?” The Boston people would have been willing to give Boston Garden and throw in the Plymouth Rock as a bonus.

 

“We had to make a decision between Sawchuk and Hall,” Jack Adams relates. “We decided to go with Hall and it was no snap decision. Glem: had played eight games with us in the past. He had shown us enough to prove he belongs in this league. He was more advanced at that time than Sawchuk was when he joined us."

 

It has been suggested there were other reasons behind the surprising departure of Sawchuk from Detroit. It’s no secret, for example, that the power-laden teams of the NHL have committed themselves to a policy of sending surplus personnel to weaker teams for the purpose of distributing strength more evenly through the league and promoting closer competition. No one will deny that the addition of Sawchuk, a three-time Vezina trophy winner and three- time all-star. would bolster the Boston Bruins. It also was hinted that Hall, as a rookie, would draw a considerably smaller salary than a perennial all-star like Sawchuk. Some Detroit players were quoted as saying the difference was divided among them in the form of raises.

 

There's no way of knowing about these things, of course. and the one person who is least concerned by them is Glenn Hall. After his initial amazement at finally getting the job he'd always dreamed of, he realized he had a large task ahead of him. He had to prove over the long haul that he was an adequate replacement. Adams had taken a risk in trading Sawchuk but, if Hall flopped, the rookie would shoulder the blame for failing to measure up to the promise he had shown. It was asking plenty oi Hall, for Sawchuk was a great goalie.

 

Happy As Netminder

 

“I’VE waited a long time for this chance. I’m going to make the most of it," Hall said as the current NHL season got under way. He proceeded to ‘show what he had in mind by scoring seven shutouts before the schedule reached the halfway mark. Three of these came in succession. It was a hotter goal-keeping pace than even Sawchuk. or Lumley before him, had ever set. And as a freshman performance, it brought back memories of a youngster called Frank Brimsek, who earned the nick-name “Mr. Zero" in his rookie year. By Christmas there were many observers who considered Hall the best goalie in the league and he was getting plenty of support for the rookie-of-the-year award.

 

“Terry is the greatest goalie I ever saw," Glenn told a reporter last fall. "When I came to Detroit, I knew l was up against his record. I had to make the people in Detroit forget him. One thing about those Detroit fans—they don't forget easily.”

 

But if Hall was perhaps a little unsteady in early games and drew a few harsh words from Sawchuk disciples, he soon convinced his most severe critics that “Trader Horn" Adams had been right again. Judged on his early season showings, Hall may not be as spectacular a goalie as Sawchuk. But on the scoresheet he was delivering.

 

“But most of the pressure on me didn't arise from trying to match Terry," Glenn recalls. "I didn’t want to let the other guys down. That’s what worried me most. Remember, this is a world championship team I‘m playing for.”

 

Glenn Henry Hall was born on Oct. 3, 1931, in the Saskatchewan hamlet of Humboldt. He likes to draw attention to his birthplace because Humboldt is becoming famous as a nursery for hockey talent. Besides Glenn, the Leswick brothers--Tony, the impish winger now with Chicago Black Hawks, and Pete, a veteran of many minor league seasons—and several Boston rookies, among them Lionel Heinrich, Al Nicholson and Ed Panagabko, learned their hockey in Humboldt.

 

Glenn served his hockey apprenticeship on outdoor rinks in Humboldt, where temperatures often drop to as low as 40 degrees below zero. He planned to become a high-scoring forward, naturally enough, but when he was shoved into the goal one day, he was there to stay.

 

“And I'm glad it happened,” he says. "It’s not as dangerous a job as it looks and remember that the goalie doesn’t have to take those bodychecks the forwards get.”

 

Accident or not, Glenn had become a goalie for all time. And big things were in store for him when his play caught the eye of Fred Pinkney, who scouted the prairies on behalf of the Detroit Red Wings.  Hall was playing for Humboldt juniors at the time. Pinkney invited him to attend the Red Wing camp at Saskatoon the following autumn and he did. Alter another season at Humboldt, he made a return visit to the Saskatoon camp in the fall of 1949. Then he made his final return trip to Humboldt —this time to pack his bags. He was leaving for the east and a career in hockey.

 

Glenn was sent to Windsor that year and he played there under Jimmy Skinner, the present Detroit coach. Glenn spent two seasons with the Border City team and during his stay was awarded the Red Tilson trophy as the OI-IA junior player judged most valuable to his team.

 

He became a full- fledged professional in the 1951-52 season with Detroit's American league farm team in Indianapolis. When that club went out of business in '52, he and the other Red Wing farmhands were shipped west to play for the Edmonton Flyers, a Western League team which became the Wings’ top farm. He remained there for three seasons, during which time he had two tryouts with the Red Wings, filling in for Sawchuk. On both occasions he actually helped Sawchuk win the Vezina trophy. In 1952-53, he was with Detroit for six games while Sawchuk was sidelined and allowed. only 10 goals, a better average than Terry maintained in becoming the league’s 1eading goalie that season. Then, last season, he was called on to give Sawchuk a “rest.” He was scored upon only twice in two games when his audition was ended prematurely. His wife was seriously ill in Edmonton and he got permission to return home.

 

That completes the story up until last summer, when he was jolted out of a vacation snooze by a telephone call from a Detroit sportswriter who wanted to know what he thought about becoming first-string goalie for the Stanley Cup champions.

 

“I was glad he was so sure I had the job locked up,” says Glenn. “because I wasn't. And through training camp l. was worried, too, because Mr. Adams has some mighty fine goalies coming up. I still have that fact in mind.“

 

He's thinking oi’ Gilles Boisvert, who came to the Detroit organization as part of the Sawchuk deal. and of Dennis Riggin, an extremely talented teen-aged goal-tender now with Detroit’s junior team in Hamilton.

 

His Biggest Thrill

 

AGAIN, it isn’t the sort of speculation that concerns Hall. He has an extremely calm approach to the whole business of being a professional hockey player. It seems to run something like this: Do the job as efficiently as you can and everything else will take care of itself. This fact is apparent in his play, too. He isn't the nervous, rabbity sort of netminder who berates himself about each shot that eludes him. In- stead, he coolly goes about his task.

 

He‘s inconspicuous off the ice, too. Now 24, he‘s just below six feet in height and has trouble keeping his weight up to 160 pounds. He is pale of complexion and almost diffident in manner, as though he were a filing clerk instead of a coming star of pro hockey who risks his health, if not his life, several times daily.

 

There is one question Glenn is not a bit hesitant about answering and it is a standard one to ask hockey players: What has been your biggest thrill in hockey?

 

“That‘s not hard to answer," he replies. “My first time as regular goalie for Detroit came in the all-star game in Detroit last fall when the Red Wings, as Stanley Cup champions, played the best from the rest ‘of the league—all the great stars like Beliveau, Richard and the rest That was the thrill of a lifetime and I also felt it was my chance to prove whether I belonged in this league or not."

 

He made the most of the opportunity. And the experts, many of whom thought Adams had pulled a boner by replacing Sawchuk, were willing to bet right then and there that it wouldn’t be Hall’s last appearance in an all-star game.

 

END

 

(Copyright 1956, The Star Weekly)