The Phantom of Madison Square Garden

 

by Don Mankowski

There’s an anniversary coming up the day after halloween this year, and the facts just might be of interest.

On November 1, 1959, the New York Rangers hosted the Montreal Canadiens at Madison Square Garden: not the current Garden, but a previous incarnation.  The Rangers were scrappy also-rans, but the Canadiens were the class of the National Hockey League, much the ice equivalent of the New York Yankees.  The “Flying Frenchmen” were then in the middle of a five-year run of Stanley Cup championships.

To tend their goal, Montreal relied on Jacques Plante, a 30-year old star who had annexed the Vezina Trophy – the goaltender’s “Oscar”– the previous three years.  The Vezina was largely a team honor in those days, and no one doubted that the Canadiens had the best defense.  Still, Plante was a frequent All-Star, and regarded as one of the best at what he did.  Jacques was an innovator.  He roamed farther from his goal crease than had any netminder before him in order to play the puck when he felt he could assist his defensemen, or to present a bigger blockade to an opposing shooter.  Certainly farther than his coaches felt comfortable.

That night, however, history would be made.  I’m not going to tell you that the Rangers vanquished Goliath and went on to win the title.  It’s a bit more subtle.  Early in the game, Plante stopped a shot by New York’s Andy Bathgate with his face, and went down with a nasty gash beside his aristocratic Gallic nose.  Nothing too unsual about that – players, especially goaltenders frequently got cut, took some stitches and returned to the game.

After the customary repair job, Plante informed Toe Blake, his coach, that he didn’t intend to return to the ice that night unless permitted to wear a face mask that he’d developed and had been using in practice.  That’s right, up until then, goaltenders faced the fire with those multi-stitched mugs bared to the vulcanized rubber puck.

In that era, teams generally carried just one goaltender on the roster.  He was expected to play every minute of every game, and only a very serious injury or a complete collapse of a goalie’s talent caused the team to dip into the minor leagues for a replacement.  When a goaltender was forced out of a game in progress¹, his place had to be taken by a “house goalie” provided by–get this–the home team!²   If said team didn’t happen to have a minor league lad on busman’s holiday, it might be a trainer or equipment manager.

(I would guess that in 1959, Plante’s salary was perhaps twelve grand annually, and keeping a rookie backup on the bench might have set his team back about four more big ones.  Wayne Gretzky probably leaves tips that big today.)

Rather than let the Rangers’ Joe Schaefer take over in his nets, Blake acceded, and after a long delay, Plante resumed his post wearing an eerie white fiberglass device over his bandaged face.

Plante was in for some ribbing.  And, hockey fans have verbal elbows that can “rib” as no other.  “Hey, Jacques, Halloween was yesterday!” was probably the only such comment that we could print in so family-oriented a publication as this.  But Plante finished the game in style.  The Canadiens won by a 3-1 score, and continued a long unbeaten streak with the masked marvel their backstop.

Despite his coach’s skepticism, Plante got to wear the mask after that.  The official complaint amongst management was that the mask would obscure a man’s vision and make him a less effective guardian of the goal.  The unstated concern was that it indicated a lack of courage.  Plante argued that sticking one’s unprotected head into a melee of skates, sticks and hard rubber was an act of stupidity, not bravery.

Exacerbating all this is the fact that Jacques Plante was, how shall we put it, an eccentric. Plante would celebrate a victory by waving triumphantly and sometimes kissing the ice.  He claimed to suffer from asthma and used to wheeze uncontrollably in the locker room, not exactly the kind of thing to inspire teammates.  He even claimed to be allergic to the city of Toronto.  Plante had the league officials measure the goal nets used in some rinks, claiming that they were nonstandard (he was sometimes correct).  He used to knit his own sweaters to wear under his jersey.  (Plante came from a large and poor family, and had to help out with such household chores, but team officials wished he’d left this particular habit behind.)

But Plante was good.  Dubbed “Jake the Snake” for his sinuous moves in the nets, he picked up a couple more Vezinas as Montreal continued their winning tradition.  In time, other goaltenders donned masks, Don Simmons and all-time great Terry Sawchuk following Plante’s example.  Stan Mikita’s curved stick and Bobby Hull’s wicked, 100-mph slap shot had a lot to do with it.  The mask slowly took hold throughout the sixties.

Fact is, the early masks were difficult to see through.  A man wearing one had to move his head about quite a bit to keep the edges of the eye openings out of sight lines. But technology helped, and Jacques Plante³  was on the edge of it.  He engaged engineers and technicians to develop stronger, lighter masks, form-fitting things shaped upon plaster casts of actual goalie faces, testing them with pucks shot from air cannons.

Montreal unloaded the problematic Plante in 1963, trading him to the Rangers for Lorne “Gump” Worsley.  Ironically, Worsley was the last notable goalkeeper to play barefaced: as of 1974, all netminders were masked.  (The otherwise courageous Worsley retired from hockey because league expansion necessitated airplane flights, and Gump couldn’t abide being off the ground!)

Plante retired after two unremarkable years with the Rangers, but returned to the NHL. when expansion brought St. Louis into the league.  Sharing time with another great veteran, Glenn Hall, Plante got his name on one more Vezina Trophy, his seventh.  In a high-scoring season, Plante turned in a goals-against average of 1.96, the lowest since the mid-1950s.

Some of the early masks were indeed creepy affairs: some were stark and skeletal, all white or black.  Some were composed of concentric fiberglass webbing, imparting a distinctly alien look to the wearer.  Still others would have gone nicely on a witch doctor.  Gerry Cheevers used to paint “stitches” on his mask for every impact it sustained, supposedly indicating what his face would have looked like without it!

      

Cheaper, mass-produced versions were made available for players at lower levels.  A certain white, plastic mask was standard for a few years, and it’s this particular model that the infamous “Jason” of the Friday the 13th sequels turned into a horror icon.  I still have an identical model, made by Cooper, which I used to wear on frozen rinks while a young goaltender in Chicago.

(Kids! Don’t try this at home!  Those novelty Halloween masks in the “Jason” style should not be worn in a hockey game.  Those things wouldn’t stand up to a Jimmy Cagney grapefruit, let alone a slap shot.)

The form-fitting, molded masks offered near-perfect sightlines, but were hot.  Teammates would comment upon the cloud of steam that rose from your head whenever you removed one during a game.  In 1972, the Soviet Union’s national team played a series against the N.H.L. all-stars, and their goalkeeper, Vladislav Tretiak, sported a “cage” mask, much like a baseball umpire’s.

Tretiak’s impressive play helped to popularize the style.  It turns out that the cage models were every bit as good as the molded variety, better in fact, or at least safer.  A couple of NHL goalies had their careers shortened by errant stick blades that caused eye injuries through the close-fitting masks.

Modern goalie masks at the professional level consist of a plastic helmet, complete with proctection for the back of the head and the neck, but with the familiar metallic cage over the eyes. Lately, baseball catchers have begun to adopt this style of mask/helmet.

All this means that, only in the slasher films does the Jacques Plante-style mask live on.  You won’t be seeing any at the Garden anytime soon.

And what of the Phantom of the Garden?  Jacques Plante made numerous comebacks, and was still an effective goalie well into his forties.  He died of cancer in 1986, but every time you see a modern twine-tender roaming the final frontier of the rink in his space helmet, you can see Plante if you squint just a bit.

Think about Jake the Snake when you don your Halloween costume!

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¹In a playoff game in 1928, New York coach Lester Patrick, aged 45, suited up and went into the breach when his goaltender got injured in a playoff game.  Patrick and the Rangers hung on to beat the Montreal Maroons in overtime.
²There was some sense of honor and sportsmanship, or maybe ego and stupidity, you choose: some house goalies (such as Lefty Wilson, Detroit Red Wings trainer) went in for the opposition and helped beat their own team.
³For you non-Francophones, I’ll offer that Jacques Plante is pronounced something like Zhock Plont.  Don’t even ask me about Vladislav Tretiak.
 
 

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