Jacques Plante

Canadian hockey player Jacques Plante was born January 17, 1929 in Shawinigan Falls, Quebec. Nicknamed Jake the Snake, Plante began his goaltending career with the Montreal Canadiens in 1952. Plante contributed a great deal to the sport of hockey by helping to define the current understanding of the goaltender’s position.

Before Plante did it, goalies did not skate behind the net to stop a puck. Now this is a common practice in games. He communicated very well with his defensemen also; he was the first goalie to raise his arm in the air when an icing call had been made to alert the other players. Plante is also credited with the stand up style of goaltending so common today. He used positional play, cutting down the angles and remaining square to the shooter with the puck.

But Plante is most well known for an incident that happened on November 1, 1959. In a game against the New York Rangers, Plante was hit in the face by a puck by Ranger Andy Bathgate. The hit was deep and he was escorted to the locker room for stitches. When he returned to the game, Plante refused to continue playing without his practice goalie mask. The coach, Toe Blake, was furious with him but had no replacement to send out at the time, so Plante played the rest of the game wearing a goalie mask.

Although Plante promised to get rid of the mask when the cut healed, the winning streak of the Canadiens softened Blake’s resolve to get rid of it, and Plante wore it until a game on March 8, 1960 against Detroit. Blake finally got him to take it off for the game and the Canadiens lost 3-0. The next game, the mask was back.

Later, Plante began designing his own masks as well as masks for other goalies. Plante introduced the mask as every day equipment for goaltenders. He was traded in 1963 to the New York Rangers and retired in 1965. However, in 1968, he returned and played with the St. Louis Blues, leading them to the Stanley Cup along with goalie Glenn Hall in 1969. The two shared the Vezina Trophy that year. He died on February 27, 1986. Click here to add this page to your favorites

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