From Quaker Oats to the Crease at 93: John Snesar’s 80-Year Love of Goaltending
John Snesar sent away for a signed NHL photo in 1945 and got Turk Broda. He still has it, and at 93 he still plays goal twice a week.
John Snesar remembers exactly how his passion for goaltending started. It was 1945, and he was 12 years old, sitting at the breakfast table eating porridge when he spotted an offer on the Quaker Oats box in front of him.
“I started reading because it had a little picture on it of a hockey player, and it says, ‘if you send in two box tops, and 25 cents, we’ll send you an autographed player from the NHL,’” Snesar told InGoal Magazine. “The first picture I got back was goaltender Turk Broda, and he was in his white (Maple Leafs) jersey, spread eagled in the goal, and it looked so good. I got the picture and I said, if I ever play hockey, I want to be a goaltender.”
Eight decades later, Snesar still has that signed photo of Broda.
And at age 93, he is also still a goalie, playing twice a week all year long.
“I used to play three a week all the time, but now I’m playing twice a week. We play 12 months of the year, so we don’t stop. We don’t take a break,” Snesar said. “One group, we play an hour and a half straight, no stops, we just keep rolling. And the other group, we play an hour and 15 minutes. Same thing, no stopping, so ‘tenders are in the game for the whole time we’re on the ice.”
What keeps him going, often against players almost 40 years younger?
The camaraderie is obviously a big part of it, but it’s not the only thing.
“There’s something driven inside — you love the game and you want to get out there and play,” he said. “I don’t want that puck to go in, so I’m doing the best I can, and we got some pretty good shooters. Our age bracket starts at 55, so I keep getting a year older, and they keep getting a year younger.”
Snesar’s passion for the position and longevity playing it are worth celebrating any day, but they make him the perfect person to fete on International Goalie Day, which was started in 2017 by InGoal Magazine writer Paul Campbell.
That’s especially true since Nov. 1 was chosen as the day to honor goalies because that was the day Jacques Plante first wore a mask in an NHL game in 1959, and Snesar, who was playing without one long before then, has a great mask story of his own involving a broken mask, getting cut open for stitches and, of course, continuing to play through the blood and without that mask.
It all started with that photo of Broda, a humble beginning for a relationship with the position that has lasted more than 80 years, taken Snesar across North America and overseas, and introduced him to generations of teammates and lifelong friends. The equipment has changed dramatically since he first fell in love with the position, as has just about everything else about hockey, but the enjoyment he gets from playing hasn’t.
And while Snesar has accumulated more than eight decades of stories about playing goal, perhaps the most remarkable part is that he still isn’t finished making them. There are plenty of stories to choose from, too.
Some date back to the early 1950s, when Snesar was playing junior hockey and sometimes skipped school to sneak into the vacant net at practices with the New Westminster Royals. The Royals had just one regular goalie, he recalled, because their owner was too cheap to pay a second, which created an opportunity for a young goalie eager to get more time in the crease.
“I used to play hooky and sneak down and go in one of the goals,” Snesar said.
He also remembers being asked to serve as a backup for the Kerrisdale Wheelers in 1952-53, an experience commemorated by a team crest he still has more than 70 years later, long after the jacket it was on wore out.
It’s one of several keepsakes Snesar proudly shared while looking through photos and memorabilia from a hockey career that spans generations.
Another commemorates a trip to Great Falls, Montana, in 1959, when Snesar joined a team assembled to compete for a regional amateur championship.
They drove south for a best-of-three series, only to discover they were short of players. Their best defenseman suffered a skate injury, and despite some talented teammates, they lost the opener.
They bounced back to win the second game but dropped the deciding contest on Sunday afternoon, completing three games in three days.
More than six decades later, Snesar still remembers the players, the circumstances and the excitement of the experience.
“A great experience to go down to Great Falls, Montana, and play,” he said.
Of course, not all of Snesar’s memories are quite so comfortable.
One of his more remarkable stories involves a game in Chilliwack between teams representing the Army and RCMP, and an early “welder-style” mask that didn’t survive the afternoon. The game was already heated, with plenty of penalties and animosity, when Snesar took a shot that broke his mask.
There was no replacement available, so he took it off and kept playing.
“I had to take the mask off,” Snesar said, adding he had to stop at the hospital on the way home after to stitch up his cheek. “I played without a mask. I had the headband. I was left with the headband. That was all that was left.”
Snesar remembers his team being outshot something like 78-25 that game, leaving him plenty of work even after losing the protection of his mask.
It’s a story that might horrify modern goalies accustomed to today’s protective equipment, not to mention the safety protocols that would prevent a goalie from continuing under those circumstances.
Snesar, however, never dwelled on the danger.
“Yeah, but it was a lot of fun,” he said, smiling.
That attitude explains a lot about why Snesar is still playing.
For all the changes in equipment and technique, including memories of his skate blade getting bent over time in an era of skate saves, and all the different teams and levels of hockey he’s experienced, Snesar’s relationship with the position has remained remarkably simple.
He enjoys playing.
He enjoys the people.
And he doesn’t see much reason to stop.
In fact, his commitment to goaltending has created opportunities that extend well beyond the rink.
Snesar once received an unexpected phone call from a representative working on an international advertising campaign for Toyota that ran during the Olympics and Paralympics. The company was looking for older people who remained active, and someone had heard about a goalie in his 80s who was still playing. Snesar was invited to audition and eventually selected, so he packed his hockey equipment and headed to Whistler for what he assumed was a shoot at the local rink. Instead, they took him to the top of the mountain to a temporary artificial-ice surface that had been set up for filming.
It was a far cry from the frozen surfaces Snesar had grown up playing on.
The campaign eventually took him all the way to Athens, Greece, for an international summit. On the flight overseas, he found himself sitting beside another participant, Sudarshan Gautam, who had scaled Mount Everest with no arms. When a flight attendant came by with lunch, the man declined.
Snesar offered to help him eat.
The two struck up a friendship, discovered they were attending the same event, and spent much of their time together in Greece.
It’s a story Snesar recalls fondly, not because of the attention he received, but because of the people he met.
“Just because I played goalie,” he said with a smile.
The advertising campaign led to media attention back home, including an appearance connected to Hockey Night in Canada and Ron MacLean. But if you ask Snesar what he enjoys most about playing goal these days, the answer has nothing to do with recognition, travel or even making saves.
It’s the people waiting for him at the rink.
“Well, first thing is to say hi to all the gang. You know, we have such a great gang out there, you know. Everybody gets along,” Snesar said.
It’s a sentiment that will resonate with anyone who has played recreational hockey long enough to appreciate that the friendships can become every bit as important as the games themselves.
Snesar spent more than three decades playing with a police hockey group in the Fraser Valley, long enough that none of the players who were there when he started were still playing by the time he finally stepped away from that group several years ago. At age 80, he received a special honour when the group presented him with a police hockey jersey.
“They don’t give it out to anyone but policemen, and I ended up getting one, and that was such an honor,” Snesar recalled.
He still treasures that jersey, along with the photographs and other mementos of his time with the group. But he also treasures the less formal moments that continue to make his current games enjoyable.
He laughs about how his teammates treat him, including the way some will come up behind him and push him toward the opposite net when the teams switch ends after five goals.
“It’s a big joke and they’re all so good,” he said. “Nobody’s barking or anything … we all do the best we can, and that’s great.”
It’s a long way from the days facing nearly 80 shots against an Army team without a mask, or travelling across the border to compete for a regional championship. But perhaps it’s not as different as it first appears.
The competitive stakes may have changed, along with equipment, teammates and circumstances, but the essential appeal of playing goal remains.
There’s still a puck to stop. There’s still a group of people who are happy to see him. And there’s still something about being the person between the pipes that makes Snesar want to come back more than 80 years since a Quaker Oats box helped start his love affair with goaltending.
He has played through generations of hockey history, watched the position change in ways that would have been unimaginable when he started, and made memories and friendships that have lasted a lifetime.
And on International Goalie Day, at 93 years old, he’s still doing the same thing that captured his imagination as a boy.
He’s still playing goal.
And he’s still having fun.