Glenn Hall

Rating:
Summary: A must read for goaltenders
Review: Everyone who has ever donned the pads and has even the slightest sense of hockey history has waited for someone to tell the amazing story of one of the creases greatest denziens. Glenn Hall's amazing accomplishments on the rink have been enshirened in sport's almanacs and stat books for all to see, but no one has ever been able to bring his personal story to light. No one until Tom Adrahtas.

Mr. Adrahtas tells the story masterfully, skillfully inserting personal quips and candid comments from the people who knew Hall best, while narrating the career of this Hall-of-Fame goaltender. In addition to this unusual but highly entertaining style of sports biography, Mr. Adrahtas goes a step further and includes his own personal essays and thoughts on goaltending and growing up around the game of hockey. Normally, it is not recommended that an author try to add to an already amazing story, but Mr. Adrahtas pulls it off beautifully. Far from detracting from the subject matter, Mr. Adrahtas' sidebars are enlightening and essential for appreciating the authors passion for the game. What's more they are essential to understanding what drove great goaltenders like Glenn Hall.

In the end, it was hard to tell which was more enriching; Glenn Hall's life story or Tom Adrahtas' passion for goaltending. In either case, no goalie can afford to miss this book.

Rating:
Summary: Marvelous Reading for Everyone - Mandatory for Goalies
Review: This book is must reading for goalies, for St. Louis Blues fans, for Chicago Blackhawk and Detroit Red Wings fans, for NHL fans, for "Original Six" fans, for anyone who loves hockey today and wants to get a sense of the history of the game, and of course of the great Glenn Hall's place in that history. Tom "Chico" Adrahtas brings Hall's phenomenal career to life with passion and clarity. Whether it's the "slow-motion" detail with which Adrahtas describes some of Hall's career highlights, or some cutting and lucid insight into the mind and life of one of the best hockey players of all time, you cannot help but be drawn in. Adrahtas states up front that he intends to prove that Mr. Goalie was the greatest goaltender of all time, and then with a refreshingly unabashed dosage of heroe worship, he proceeds to do just that. And he does it not only with the cold, hard statistics that bear out Hall's greatness (e.g. his "impossible" 502 consecutive games in the NHL, the first "expansion" team player in the Hockey Hall of Fame), but perhaps more importantly by getting to the core of his character. Adrahtas, himself a goalie and a teacher of goalies, develops impressively throughout the book how goaltending is essentially a "character" position, what he calls "the most mentally demanding of all positions in sport." And while doing so he succeeds in convincing the reader that Glenn Hall's character is what sets him apart from, and elevates him above, the likes of Jacques Plante and Terry Sawchuk, his closest contemporary peers, and also apart from and above the best goalies of the modern era. This book is marvelous reading, a heartfelt tribute to a wonderful man who was surely the greatest goaltender of all time: Glenn Hall, Mr. Goalie.

Rating:
Summary: Glenn Hall-The Man They Call Goalie by Thomas Adrahtas
Review: This is a good book for hockey enthusiasts. Coach-Tom Adrahtas
traces Mr. Goalie's rise to stardom with a series of stories
and centerfold pictures. The height of the star's success
is the Stanley Cup earned in 1961. The author captures the
enthusiasm of the croud during the cheering in the St. Louis
arena. In addition, the author relates Hall's "Jack Dent Award"
for an MVP on the Windsor Spitfires. The NHL doors opened for
him when he arrived at the Red Wing Camp. The factual content
of Hall's career is conveyed at major juncture points by
the author. The book is a worthy investment for sports buffs.