Goalie Masks

The other day on the Ticket AM radio, morning host Craig Miller mentioned his fascination with Chris Osgood's mask, a throw back mask he claims is "red army issued". I can neither confirm nor deny this caveat but it is a cool mask, he has worn this style of mask for his entire pro career, as best I can remember. It's the same stlye seen on Mike Vernon, Billy Smith, and Dan Cloutier. It is not the bird cage that Dominic Hasek wears. In Dom's Buffalo years, his mask was merely a helmet and full cage but when he went to Detroit TPS created a special helmet, no doubt to his own specifications, that was smooth like a bowling ball, instead of all the creases and odd deflection angles of a standard helmet. He is the only one I have ever seen with this "mask".


Let's start at the beginning.

The frist goaltender to wear a mask in a National League game was not Jacques Plante. This is a commonly held belief but the honor actually falls to Clint Benedict who would have never thought of it as an honor. In 1930 he briefly wore a leather mask after breaking his nose (again) and faced much ridicule for wearing it. It wasn't until nearly three decades passed that Plante started wearing his practice mask regularly in games. There were still many players and coaches giving him a hard time for his mask but Plante was a loner who thought little of anyone else's opinions on goaltending, and so he went on to completely redefine the position. One of his contemporaries, Gump Worsley, was the last goaltender to play without a mask, which he did until 1974 with the Minnesota Northstars. He criticized all tenders that wore them, saying they were afraid of the puck, ya' think?

Looking at the first mask you can see the extent of the improvements made throughout the years, but with the long careers of many goalies, many eras of masks were often seen at opposing ends of the rink in a single game. These days, masks are made from kevlar (Dupont's bulletproof wonder polymer) with multi-density foam padding, and complicated "cat's eye" cages for optimal vision. While protection is paramount with this critical piece of equipment, the canvas for individual expression is what makes the mask such a focal point in today's game. Some of my favorites belong to:
Gerry Cheevers, he logged headshots with painted stitch marks.











Ken Dryden, a unique and iconic mask, at least for me.











Pelle Lindberg, I always thought this thing was scarrier than Jason's.












Jacques Caron, did this mask offer any protection?








Patrick Lalime, in his Senator's dream season.


Being from Texas, I have missed out on a lot of legendary masks but for your viewing pleasure try out this mask sight: http://www.goaliesarchive.com/masks.html

Hope you enjoyed this a bit.

P.S. I heard this great line, "I like Kevin Weekes' masks, but it seems like he has more masks than starts".