Jacques Plante was the first NHL
goaltender to regularly ever wear a mask…previously goalies played without one
and their faces showed it...with numerous scars to prove it…Plante had
experimented with a mask in practice but his coach forbade him to wear it
during games…finally on one night, Plante’s nose was broken during a game…after
he went to the locker room for repairs, he came out wearing his fiberglass
mask…his coach was furious, but didn’t have another goalie to play, so Plante
took the ice wearing his mask and refused to play without it thereafter…as the
Canadians went on a winning streak, the coach continued to let him wear it…soon
other goaltenders began wearing masks and eventually they became
mandatory…Plante was a true trail blazer and made the game safer for all those
goaltenders who followed him…in life, many wear a mask of one sort or another
for one reason or another…in fact, I would hazard to guess that almost all of
us wear a mask, and only rarely do we reveal our true self.
