50 Years of the Hockey Mask

Fifty years ago this month, goaltender Jacques Plante took a stick to the face. It was pretty much just a day at the office for goaltenders of that era. But not for Jacques. The Montreal Canadiens' goaltender refused to skate again unless he was able to wear a mask. Since at the time there were no hockey mask designers, he came up with the structure himself (at left). Soon after, others followed.

Those early hockey masks look like crude cousins to today's über-polished, air-brushed designs, but along the way there have been some innovative designs and eye-catching paint schemes. Some of the more bad-ass masks incorporate the logomark of the teams, often in an intimidating manner:

Left: Philadelphia Flyers' Wayne Stephenson; right: Quebec Nordiques' Don McLeod


Team-for-team, our own Washington Capitals match up with anyone. Throughout the late '70s and early '80s, there was a unwavering patriotic bent to the Caps' masks, no doubt fueled by bicentennial fever. Old glory has never as good as when it was mantled across Bernie Wolf's cranium. And how about Wayne Stephenson's Peter Criss-esque design? (Could it have been inspired by KISS' 1979 visit to the Cap Centre?) For pure Americana-on-steroids, you can't beat the Caps' golden era:

Clockwise from top left: Wayne Stephenson ('80-'81); Gary Inness ('79-'81); Bernie Wolf ('78-'79); Gary Smith ('77-'78)