He was always working on his masks, always trying to see a bit better but cautious not to make the eyeholes big enough that a puck could do damage. "The first time Ken and I played each other in the NHL," says Dave Dryden, "we were both wearing 'Jacques Plante' masks."ĭave Dryden left the NHL for the World Hockey Association, and while with the Edmonton Oilers in 1976 had an idea. In the 1972 Summit Series, much ridicule was directed at Soviet goaltender Vladislav Tretiak for his "birdcage" mask, but it led to a great inspiration by Dave Dryden, goaltender for the Buffalo Sabres and brother of Montreal goaltender Ken Dryden. Plante retired, he manufactured and sold them – and they sometimes had trouble seeing through the eyeholes. Goalies were still getting injured with the close-fitting fibreglass masks – after Mr. Smith that it was the beginning of "mask art," now a highly sophisticated art form. He lost and never played another game.īoston goaltender Gerry Cheevers began applying "stitches" to his mask where pucks pinged off it. Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Andy Brown was the last NHLer to go maskless, in a game against the Rangers on April 7, 1974. "My face is my mask," joked the Rangers' Gump Worsley. He refused to return to the ice surface without protection – and history was made. Plante on the nose, cutting him for seven stitches. 1, 1959, when the Habs visited the Rangers, and an Andy Bathgate shot hit Mr. Burchmore then built a mask out of fibreglass and attached straps.
Plante agreed to sit while a mould of plaster of Paris was made of his face. Burchmore began thinking about how such injuries might be prevented. Plante was cut in a playoff game, got stitches and came back, Mr. Others burnt out early.īill Burchmore, who worked for Fiberglas Canada in Montreal, was a coach of kids hockey and a huge fan of the Canadiens. No wonder goaltender Glenn Hall threw up before every game. But players were getting bigger, stronger, and shooting much harder. Owners were very much against covering up players' faces. But it wasn't until 1959 that the goalie mask truly arrived. In the 1950s, minor-hockey goalies began wearing clear-plastic shields. He soon gave up on it.įor years after, many goalies – especially if they wore glasses – would play wearing a baseball catcher's mask.
22 to play the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden, he wore a leather mask, perhaps a sparring mask from boxing, to protect his nose. In January of 1930, the future Hall of Famer was knocked out by a shot by the Canadiens' Howie Morenz.
FACER CREATOR GLOBE PROFESSIONAL
The first professional hockey player to wear one was Clint Benedict of the Montreal Maroons. Her father insisted she wear a fencing mask to protect her teeth. Graham, goaltender for the 1927 Queen's University women's hockey team. Plante's insistence that he be allowed to wear it – despite the protestations of Montreal Canadiens coach Toe Blake – not only changed goaltending, it changed the game of hockey.Īccording to Saving Face: The Art and History of the Goalie Mask, a 2008 book by Jim Hynes and Gary Smith, the first to wear one in hockey was Ms. Plante, having been badly cut by a slap shot, tells his coach he won't go back out onto the ice without the strange-looking mask he'd been wearing in practices. There is even a charming Heritage Minute in which Mr. Plante, of course, is the one who always gets credit for the goalie mask. How a Canadian engineer fuelled the battery industry In 1967, the birth of modern Canada
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