Hockey Masks

Oddly enough, hockey masks were not the first protective equipment invented for the game. An early form of hockey mask made its first appearance in a woman’s game. The Montreal Western’s female goalie was up against one of the toughest shooters in the league, the Victorias’ Albertine Lapensé. To protect her face, the goalie wore a baseball catcher’s mask. This was in January 1916, a full 11 years before Elizabeth Graham, goalie for the Queen’s University hockey team, wore a fencing mask to protect her face in 1927. It gave the fans something to talk about during and after the game.

The most notable “first,” however, is Jacques Plante. His face had been shattered in 1955 and 1957 by hockey pucks. Andy Bathgate’s shots on net in 1959 were the last straw. Plante’s reply was the hockey goalie mask. He wore it in a November 1, 1959 game. As famed goalie for the Montreal Canadiens, his debut received the most attention, resulting in the acceptance of the mask among hockey players.

Who invented the hockey mask is unknown. The credit for design, however, lies not with Plante or Graham. It probably goes back to harness-makers. The person most credited with the earliest design is the Montreal Maroons’ Clint Benedict. On January 7, 1930, he donned the first hockey mask. The design called for a leather hockey mask to fit flush against the face. Protection was minimal and the design impractical. Benedict wore his mask for five games.

The version Plante donned in 1959 was somewhat different. He worked on the design with Bill Burchmore, creating the first fiberglass hockey goalie masks. The new model molded to fit Plante’s face. After this formal introduction, the mask took off. It became an integral part of the goal keep’s arsenal – a weapon to intimidate the other players. Therefore, to a large degree, Plante and Burchmore were responsible for the first goalie mask and hockey innovations in goalie gear.

The introduction of fiberglass made all the difference. Soon every goalie had their mask. In fact, goalies began to experiment with them. There were, however, still problems. The masks did not provide complete protection. In 1972, Vladislav Tretiak of the USSR, wore a goalie helmet with a cage design. The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) ruled in favor of Tretiak’s design, forbidding use of the facemask. This changed when Dave Dryden combined a fiberglass mask and a partial cage design.

Other changes followed. Painted masks began to appear. The credit for painted ice hockey goalie masks is John “Frosty” Forristall, trainer for the Boston Bruins. He began to paint Gerry Cheever’s Mask with stitches – one for every time the mask saved him. However, in 1972, Frank Lewis, the Philadelphia Flyer’s trainer, painted Doug Favell’s mask a bright pumpkin orange as part of a Halloween prank. Favell added white lines and a trend began. It is a craze carried on outside the arena. A street hockey goalie mask is every bit as colorful as is its ice hockey counterpart. Street hockey goalie masks online sport Gargoyles, King Kongs and various decals.

Today, hockey, a mask and a goalie are synonymous. Goalie masks for ice hockey vary significantly in construction and design from their original models. An airbrushed hockey mask is a distant relative to the original leather contraption. Yet, today’s goalie masks can be as scary as the most famous model– the Jason hockey mask worn in the movie Friday the Thirteenth.