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".

Need More I-League?

If Saturday nights aren't enough hockey for you, then check out the I-League at Polar Ice in Grapevine. It's on Friday nights and costs about the same as Euless.

The setup is different: Rather than a bunch of teams, it's one big group of guys. One week you work on improving your skills as a group, the next week they divide you up for a game with referee. IMHO, you are likely to learn a lot more there than in Euless -- lots more instruction -- but it's not quite as much fun as regular league play. In my case, I did both, but that just goes to show what a freak I was.

Anyway, Grapevine starts its "season" this Friday, so there's time to show up. As of a couple years ago, they also welcomed people who wanted to pay by the week if they couldn't show up regularly.

The contact is Steve Kaeppel: 972-896-5849. His email: swkaeppel@comcast.net
Polar Ice website is here.

BC

Suck Less at Hockey

Speaking of the Other Side of the World ...

Just received a release from NYTEX on their summer stick-and-puck class, aimed at relative beginners like us (generally, these classes are for I- and D-League players). It will run from June 18 to Aug. 13 (nine weeks), all on Wednesday nights. The note says to call them for times. Price is $129, $99 for goalies.

All sessions will be with professional coaches: Adam Davis, formerly of the Mississippi River Kings; and Jeff Bohl of the Junior Brahmas.

For more info, contact NYTEX.

BC

On the Other Side of the World...

As a side note and a thorn in the side of the haters. Formerly of euless origin, the Spartans were crowned champions of NYTEX D league for the 07-08 season, formerly held by Mayhem. Say what you want in euless vs NYTEX...its all the same.

some other notable teams which failed:
Beerflyers, Hockey Team, Mayhem, Borrachos.

peace

Movie Pass (get it? Hockey, pass)

On this extended weekend, I got my hockey fix out of the way on Friday night. After a quick pow-wow with the wife, I exchanged my Saturday night practice for the Heineken cup game in Grapevine. A team representing Euless I-league rostered by a majority of Komets and me, secured the cup for our fair city (if you've been following the Komets here, then you know that any win is a big win). I played a very pedestrian game but the offense kicked it in at the half-way point and delivered an 8 to 4 woopin' to our Grapevine counterparts.

With that out of the way, I was free to do a bit of house painting on Saturday (joy!) and after the grocery store run on Sunday, took my Twelve year old son to see the new Indiana Jones flick . . .

I didn't do my homework and re-watch the originals like I had planned (I have the set on DVD) but let's work this through in our heads. I think everyone would agree that the first, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was the best, as it usually goes, Hollywood makes a winner and immediately returns to the well. The second one, "The Temple of Doom" tried to capture the same sort of emotion but was short on content and went for a lot of cheap gross-out scenes and ill-advised comedic relief, I was young enough when this came out that I pretty much lapped it up, but it certainly does not hold up well. In the third, "The Last Crusade", they spent a little more prep time and cashed in on a lot of nostalgia (flashback scene with River Phoenix, twenty minutes minimum) rather than go with an obscure Thugee cult from India, this time they used a more familiar myth to the American public and built it around the Holy Grail. It was not too bad, certainly not as good as the original but I didn't object to the whole Connery thing, and re-uniting much of the ancillary characters from the first was critical to the new formula . . .

"The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" tries to do what Crusade did, rather than what Raiders did. It is ranked by me as third in this series. The first scene of Indy laying on his stomach with an overhead shot, you realize this is an OLD MAN, almost white, sparse hairs cover the back of his head, and when he stands to cover his head with the hat, you can glimpse his wizened chest through the open shirt, sad. But, I must admit that I soon lost sight of his age issues and he played the older Indy pretty well.

CAUTION! SPOILERS CONTAINED BELOW

The Russians are the new Nazis in this one and they cast another Evil temptress (like in Crusade) that never develops a second side to her character (unlike Crusade) so that they don't complicate the re-introduction of Marian Ravenwood (from Raiders). Of course Shia LeBoeuf is revealed to be Indy's kid by Marian, and his whip is a switchblade, his hat is a Harley and a jacket, it's really pathetic. The "snake gag" gets worked into this one also, by "worked" I mean forced. While sinking in a sand pit, Indy for some reason is without his whip, so he is thrown a snake to lift haul himself out, hilarity ensues! The would have been worst moment happened at the end of the movie as Shia LeBoeuf goes to put the hat on his head but Indy takes it away and puts it atop his own head, I almost yelled at the screen.

The best part of the experience was that I got to see it with my Twelve year old son, which is the key demographic for this movie so he really enjoyed it, and I enjoyed that.

"The Love Guru" is probably not going to be as good as all of us hockey players would hope, but, If Molson is on board with it, it can't be too bad, right?