A gamer goes

That must be one whale of a 0-0 save-fest they've got going on up in the Great Beyond right now, with the word coming down that Mr. Goalie himself has passed. Glenn Hall was 94 and follows by a few months the great (maybe the greatest) Ken Dryden, which means when the celestials choose up sides for pond hockey each gets a stud between the pipes.

Dryden, of course, owned the 1970s for the lordly Montreal Canadiens. Hall, on the other hand, made his rep with the less-than-lordly Chicago Black Hawks of the 1950s and early '60s, when you could set your watch by two things: That the sun would come up in the east every morning, and that Glenn Hall would be in goal for Chicago every night. 

Records are made to be broken, to lapse into cliche, but Hall holds one that likely will never be touched. For seven years, between 1955 and 1962, he started every game -- and with his bare face hanging out, because goalie masks were not yet a thing. 

Counting playoffs, he started 552 games in a row. That's 295 more than the guy in second place, Alec Connell of the original Ottawa Senators between 1924 and 1930. 

The man was a gamer, in other words. Even if he wasn't always rewarded for it.

In all his years fielding pucks aimed at his mug, after all, Hall hoisted the Stanley Cup only one time. That was in 1961, when he backstopped the Black Hawks to the Stanley Cup. Seven years later, he was in the net for the St. Louis Blues in another Cup Final, but the expansion Blues were swept by the Canadiens in the Cup Final.

Know what, though? 

In four games, Mr. Goalie gave up just 11 goals. He made so many kick-saves-and-a-beauty, in fact, he won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP anyway. At the time he was only the second player from a losing team to do that; all these years later, he's still only one of six.

Rarity was his thing, it seems. And not just for those few times someone managed to slip a puck past him.