Net minder Jacques Plante literally changed face of hockey

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This article was published 07/11/2009 (6177 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jacques Plante

The Man Who Changed the Face of Hockey

By Todd Denault

McClelland & Stewart, 326 pages, $33

THIS week the hockey world is remembering the great Montreal Canadiens goaltender Jacques Plante.

Fifty years ago he suffered a nasty gash to his nose from a point-blank shot by New York Rangers star Andy Bathgate. After getting seven stitches, he returned to Madison Square Garden wearing a protective face mask, the first goaltender in NHL history to do so.

Ontario journalist Todd Denault chronicles that fateful night in Jacques Plante, The Man Who Changed the Face of Hockey, an entertaining biography that reminds readers that Plante’s enduring legacy is not his six Stanley Cups or seven Vezina trophies but the innovations he brought to hockey.

Plante revolutionized the goaltender’s position. Fans today take it for granted that goaltenders always left their crease to play the puck.

But that didn’t happen until the lanky French-Canadian from Shawinigan became the first wandering puckstopper.

He was the first to raise his arm to signal his defencemen that the other team had iced the puck. He was also the first goaltending coach, but he will always be celebrated for having "beaucoup de guts" to break the mask barrier.

Like many pioneers, he faced questions about his manhood, his courage and how such an ugly Frankenstein mask would sully the beauty of the game.

Everyone who ever pulled on a mask, from Johnny Bower and Glenn Hall to Patrick Roy and Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees, owes him a debt.

Denault’s first book is a no-frills retelling of the Plante legend. It’s an easy read short of any revelations and obviously released to capitalize on the 50th anniversary.

He depends primarily on newspaper accounts and the plethora of books about Plante’s legendary teammates on the 1955-’56 Montreal Canadiens, which many believe was the greatest team ever.

Denault draws a colourful picture of Plante as a true eccentric, an oddball who wouldn’t flinch at the blur of a rubber disc heading at his face and then calm his nerves by knitting toques in the dressing room. Outside the spotlight he was a loner.

From his vantage point in the crease he saw a different game than everyone else. It was the outspoken Plante who made headlines with the accusation that the nets in three of the original six arenas were not the same size.

To the league’s embarrassment, "Jake the Snake" (as he was called), was proven right.

Denault recounts how Bathgate intended to fire the puck in Plante’s face and hurt him in retaliation for a poke check that sent him head first into the boards.

He retells how Boom Boom Geoffrion accidentally authored the first slapshot and how Plante predicted that a fledgling netminder named Patrick Roy would never be an NHL goalie.

Plante tended goal for the Canadiens from 1953 to 1963, during which time the team won the Stanley Cup six times, five of those wins consecutive.

In 1978, he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, fittingly with none other than Andy Bathgate, who had turned him into the first masked man of hockey. Plante died in 1986 at age 57 of stomach cancer.

A lifelong Canadiens fan, Free Press theatre critic Kevin Prokosh was born and raised in Montreal. The only time he saw Plante play in person was in 1965, the year following his retirement, when he backstopped the Montreal Junior Canadiens against the touring Russian national team at the sold-out Forum.