Goalies come and goalies go, but there will only be one "Mr. Goalie".

Hockey is an odd game of rituals. Wayne Gretzky always tucked his sweater in on one side. Some players skip over the blue line on their way out for the pre-game skate. Some guys have a certain meal they eat before every game. Glenn Hall had his ritual - he threw up before every game.

Hall once said, "I always felt I played better if I was physically sick before the game. If I wasn't sick, I felt I hadn't done everything I could to try to win." Hall did absolutely nothing to dispel the stereotype of goaltenders not being wrapped too tightly.

But damn, he was good. And durable. There may be no record in hockey that is as unbreakable as Hall's streak of 502 consecutive complete games, spanning 8 seasons - and that's just regular season games. Hell, the city could have given out the Hawks' backup goalie job to some alderman's cousin.

Hall wasn't just great, he was an innovator. He was the first NHL goalie to successfully implement the butterfly style of goaltending. Strangely, he never embraced wearing a mask, not wearing one while playing for the Hawks. In fact, he never wore one until his last season - while he was playing for the St. Louis Blues.

He started out as a Detroit Red Wing, giving them two strong seasons, even winning the Calder Trophy for the 1955-56 season. After the 1956-57 season, Detroit wanted to punish "Terrible" Ted Lindsay, who was one of the organizers of the NHLPA. What better way to punish Lindsay than by sending him to the Blackhawks, the worst team in the NHL? The trade expanded to include Hall going to the Hawks for Johnny Wilson, Forbes Kennedy and Hank Bassen.

While the Hawks were brutal before Hall got there, in the next couple years a core group of players, including Bobby Hull, Pierre Pilote and Stan Mikita showed up at Chicago Stadium. What had begun as Siberia for Lindsay became a pretty sweet setup for Hall & Co.

Hall went on to have a stellar career with the Hawks, backstopping them to the 1960-61 Stanley Cup, as well as winning three Vezina Trophies, in 1963-64, 1966-67 and his last one, 1968-69 was while he was with St. Louis. He also racked up 7 First Team All-Star honors, playing in an era with greats like Gump Worsley, Terry Sawchuk, Jacques Plante and Johnny Bower.

Hall had a very unorthodox style. He would jump up on high shots in order to block them with his chest. His butterfly style allowed him to go post-to-post more effectively than the traditional stand-up goalie who would have to lay on the ice and stack their pads.

He was quick too. Damn, his catching glove was where shots went to die. He also would sometimes even act as a third defenseman, skating the puck up to the blue line to initiate a rush.

Sadly, as great as his Hawks career was, he was left unprotected in the 1967 expansion draft, since the Hawks had their goalie of the future in young Tony Esposito. St. Louis snapped up Hall, and he led the Blues' to three straight trips to the Stanley Cup Finals. Of course, back then, the expansion teams comprised one conference and the "Original Six" formed the other, thus guaranteeing an expansion team a trip to the Finals.

For two years, St. Louis even enjoyed an all Hall of Fame tandem in goal, as Hall and Plante shared the net.

After Hall retired, the Blackhawks retired his#1. His hometown of Humboldt, Saskatchewan honored him by building Glenn Hall Park, which is on Highway #5 - Glenn Hall Highway.

He still lives in Humboldt, and in 1998 was ranked #16 in The Hockey News' list of 100 greatest players of all time.