MONTREAL — They played at the opposite end of the rink for 16 of Terry Sawchuk’s 103 regular-season shutouts — Hall of Fame goalies Glenn Hall and Johnny Bower watching history being made one zero at a time.

They once were teammates of Sawchuk, but much longer they were his opponent. No matter their uniform, in the tiny goaltending fraternity of a six-team NHL they were battered and bruised brothers-in-arms.

On Monday, Hall and Bower, Hall of Famers both, marvelled at the New Jersey Devils’ Martin Brodeur earning shutout No. 104, breaking Sawchuk’s NHL record that had stood for 39 years, 10 months and 20 days.

Hall played in a dozen of Sawchuk’s shutouts from 1955-65. Twice in less than a month during the 1955-56 season as a Detroit Red Wing, he duelled Sawchuk, then a Boston Bruin, to a 0-0 draw. Once more in 1962-63, Chicago’s Hall and Detroit’s Sawchuk played to another scoreless tie.

Bower played in four from 1953-63, one as a New York Ranger and three with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

“Martin started very young, he’s played with very good teams, and he’s a very good goalkeeper. The combination of those three things will get you records,” Hall said Tuesday from his home in Stony Plain, Alta. “It doesn’t surprise me at all that Martin has gotten 104, and I think what he’s set now will stick for another 40 years.”

For decades, Bower believed 103 was untouchable.

“I didn’t think in my time that anybody would ever break it,” he said from Mississauga, Ont. “But then they came up with a goalkeeper by the name of Brodeur and my, what a goalkeeper he’s been. He’s a Hall of Famer, through and through.”

Brodeur’s feat has reminded Hall and Bower how tightly their careers were tied to Sawchuk’s NHL journey.

Playing junior as a teen from 1949-51 with the Detroit-affiliated Windsor Spitfires, Hall would make the short trip to see Sawchuk’s earliest work with the Red Wings. In fathering goaltending’s butterfly style, Hall would adopt a modified Sawchuk crouch.

“They were Terry’s best years, without a doubt. Unbelievably good,” Hall, 78, remembered of Sawchuk’s first four seasons, 44 shutouts earned from 1950-54. “I’d watch him and the league’s other goalkeepers to see what they were doing right and where they had problems. It was an excellent learning experience.”

Hall was imported from the Western league’s Edmonton Flyers in the early 1950s to occasionally fill in for an injured Sawchuk, including his NHL debut against the Canadiens at the Forum in December 1952. He became the Red Wings starter in 1955-56 when Sawchuk was dealt to Boston in a shocking nine-player trade.

Hall won the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie and was named to two all-star teams. But he was swapped to Chicago in a 1957 unloading of union activist Ted Lindsay, Hall thrown in because, as he’s said, Red Wings manager Jack Adams “didn’t think I’d ever be a goalkeeper.”

Sawchuk was reacquired by Detroit for that season and played seven more seasons in the winged wheel. He was claimed by Toronto in the intraleague waiver draft, becoming a teammate of Bower when was left unprotected in 1964.

The two greybeards shared the Vezina Trophy with Toronto in 1965-66 and anchored the Maple Leafs to their 1967 Stanley Cup victory over the Canadiens, the last of both goalers’ four Cups.

“I was told Terry was a loner, a very quiet person, and it was true,” recalled Bower, 85, perhaps the most beloved Leaf ever (who only a few years ago stopped playing Santa at the team’s Christmas party).

“I said to Terry one day, ‘You don’t enjoy practice much, do you?’ and he said, ‘I play my games during the games.’ But I liked him. After we won the Cup, I told him we should throw a party for our teammates to show our appreciation. And Terry threw in $1,000, like I did.”

For Sawchuk’s 71-year-old brother, Jerry, Brodeur’s record chase has been an emotional experience. He has choked up several times during recent conversations from his home in Michigan.

Tuesday, Sawchuk was preparing to send an email of congratulations to Brodeur, also having done so when the Devils goalie reached No. 103. And he fondly reminisced about his late brother’s desire to play for the Canadiens — a deal he said the wary Red Wings would never make.

“God gave Martin some great gifts and he’s used them well,” he said. “I see so much of Terry in him — his glove hand, the way he moves.

“Every time I see Martin, his father, Denis, is not far away. I’ve been thinking back to Terry and our dad, and the love they had for each other.”

In Stony Plain, Hall should sleep comfortably knowing that while Sawchuk’s shutout record has fallen, his own ironman record is forever beyond reach.

No goalie, ever, will equal the 502 consecutive games he played from 1955-62.

“In the one-goalkeeper system, you played whether you had a bad night or a good night,” said Hall, who had many more of the latter.

“Martin’s record is huge. And it’s progress. It’s the way it should be.”

Montreal Gazette

dstubbs@thegazette.canwest.com