In keeping with the Halloween theme, nothing is scarier than a hockey goalie mask thanks to Jason of Friday the 13th fame. But this is Throwback Thursday so what you probably don’t know is the story of the pro hockey goalie who was the first to regularly wear a mask.
On November 1, 1959 Montreal Canadien Jacques Plante became the first hockey goalie to wear a full face mask. While Plante took a lot of heat for it at the time, within a few years, every goalie in the league was wearing them – and Plante’s story will give you a clue about why.
That fateful November night, about 3 minutes into a game versus the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden, Plante was hit in the face by a puck splitting his lip from the corner of his mouth all the way up to his nostril and breaking his nose. He tried to keep playing, but there was blood everywhere so within a few minutes Plante was sent to the locker room to be stitched up. When he returned to the ice 20 minutes later, he was wearing the fiberglass mask he had been wearing for practice. Up until that night, the Canadiens legendarily cranky coach Toe Blake had not allowed Plante to wear the mask during a game fearing it would impair his vision. But after being stitched up, Plante put his foot down and refused to play without the mask.
Coach Blake, Plante’s teammates, opposing players and reporters mocked him mercilessly.  But Plante said that after four broken noses, a broken jaw, two broken cheekbones and almost 200 stitches in his head, he just didn’t care how the mask looked. And given that Plante won the Vezina Trophy (the NHL’s goaltending prize) seven times, was named to the NHL All-Star team seven times and had six Stanley Cup wins, it wasn’t long before he was imitated rather than mocked. Plante style masks were popular throughout the 1960’s – and Plante himself played in the NHL until 1975 so you could argue that they played a role in his longevity in the league.
Want to know more about Jacques? Check out this link.
Halloween is a holiday with roots dating back to ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, so there really isn’t a date that anyone can point to for when it started being celebrated. Samhain is still celebrated and recognizes the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter (the dark part of the year). The Celts believed at this critical time of the year, the line between the living and dead was blurred so offerings of food and drink were left outside for souls of the dead who may come to visit.
Last Saturday, I had a deep tissue massage. It was so good, I was just plain stupid when it was done – I was so relaxed that I could hardly figure out how to get myself dressed again! If you haven’t tried a deep tissue massage, it isn’t for the faint of heart – it will hurt. But it’s a good hurt. I’ve had a sore shoulder for a couple of weeks – and I do believe it’s fixed now!
I don’t know about where you live, but here in Chicago we had frost almost every morning last week. And yesterday? It was 24 degrees when I got up! So we’ve had our official first hard freeze of the season and I’d like to point out that the Farmer’s Almanac lied to me. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, Chicago wasn’t supposed to have first frost until October 29th.  They get themselves off the hook for their tragically wrong date by saying it’s only a 30% probability of being correct. Go figure.
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