50 Years Behind The Mask

[icehog3]

Sunday, November 1st is a historic day for NHL hockey. On that night Jacques Plante became the first goaltender to wear a full facemask in an NHL game, and first to begin wearing a facemask on a regular basis. One golltender, Clint Benedict of the Montreal Maroons, wore a partial leather mask for a few games in 1929 to protect a broken nose, but it was neither full sized, nor did he wear it after his nose healed.

During the 1959–60 NHL season, Plante introduced the goaltender mask into a regular game. While Plante had previously used his mask in practice to avoid getting injured, starting in 1956, after missing 13 games due to sinusitis, his team's head coach, Toe Blake, did not permit him to wear it during regulation play. However, on November 1, 1959, Plante's nose was broken when he was hit by a shot fired by Andy Bathgate, three minutes into the game against the New York Rangers, and he was taken to go to the dressing room for stitches. When he returned, he was wearing the crude home-made goaltender mask that he had been using in practices. Blake was livid, but he had no other goaltender to call upon and Plante refused to return to the goal unless he wore the mask. Blake agreed on the condition that Plante discard the mask when the cut healed.[30] The Canadiens won the game 3–1. In the ensuing days Plante refused to discard the mask, and as the Canadiens continued to win, Blake was less vocal about it. The unbeaten streak stretched to 18 games. Plante did not wear the mask, at Blake's request, against Detroit on March 8, 1960; the Canadiens lost 3–0, and the mask returned for good the next night. That year the Canadiens won their fifth straight Stanley Cup, which proved to be Plante's last.

With the advent of the curved stick first used by Stan Miklta in the early 60's, athletes becoming bigger and stronger, and breakthroughs in materials used to make hockey sticks....can you imagine a modern-era NHL goalie playing without a mask?



For anyone who gets the NHL Network, they have an hour long special on the subject airing Sunday at 6PM CST.