Jacques Plante

Jacques Plante was born on January 17, 1929, in Shawinigan Falls, Quebec, the oldest of 11 children. Money for equipment was short; his first goal stick was one his father cut and shaped from a tree. Asthma troubled him from childhood and followed him through his playing career. He got his start in the net as a schoolboy, when the school team's coach fell out with his goaltender at a practice and Plante offered to take over. He held the job against boys several years older.

He played junior for the Quebec Citadelles of the QJHL from 1947 and moved up to the Montreal Royals of the Quebec Senior Hockey League in 1949. It was in Quebec that he started leaving his crease to play the puck. The Citadelles' defencemen were slow skaters, and he reasoned that if he reached a loose puck first, the other team could not shoot it. The habit stayed with him and became part of how he was known across the league.

His first NHL call came in November 1952, with Gerry McNeil hurt. Plante beat the Rangers 4-1 in his debut on November 1, went 2-0-1 over three games while allowing four goals, and was sent back to the Royals; he also spent part of that season with the Buffalo Bisons of the AHL. In the spring the Canadiens recalled him for the semifinal against Chicago. Down three games to two, coach Dick Irvin started him in Game 6, and Plante shut out the Black Hawks 3-0, then won Game 7 by 4-1. He split the first two games of the Final against Boston before Irvin went back to McNeil, who finished the series, and Plante's name went on the Stanley Cup for the first time. He spent most of 1953-54 back in Buffalo, was recalled in February 1954 for the last 17 games of the regular season, and was Montreal's regular goaltender from 1954-55 on.

From 1955-56 the job was his outright. He went 42-12-10 that season with a league-best 1.86 goals-against average, Montreal won the Stanley Cup, and he took the first of five straight Vezina Trophies; no goaltender had won five in a row before. The Canadiens won the Cup every spring from 1956 to 1960 with Plante in net. The years were not trouble-free for him: the asthma kept flaring, and knee injuries cost him parts of three seasons over his career.

He had worn a mask in practice for about three years, taking it up after an operation for sinusitis, but head coach Toe Blake would not allow it in a game; Blake believed it would cut into his vision. That changed on November 1, 1959, at Madison Square Garden. A shot from the Rangers' Andy Bathgate caught Plante in the face 3:06 into the first period and opened a cut from the corner of his mouth up through his nostril. He was stitched in the dressing room and told Blake he would go back out only with the mask on. Teams did not dress a second goaltender then, so the coach had little choice. Plante returned wearing his practice mask and Montreal won 3-1. Blake's understanding was that the mask would come off once the cut healed, but the Canadiens kept winning: their unbeaten run reached 18 games before Toronto ended it on December 2, and the argument faded. Plante did play one game bare-faced at Blake's request, a 3-0 loss in Detroit on March 8, 1960. He put the mask back on the next night and never played without it again. Others had covered their faces before him; Clint Benedict of the Montreal Maroons wore a leather face pad for a handful of games in 1930 while a broken nose healed. Plante was the first to make one part of his regular equipment, and he went on to design masks for himself and for other goaltenders.

A knee injury disrupted his 1960-61 season, and he spent a stretch with the Royals, by then in the Eastern Professional Hockey League, while he recovered. He came back in 1961-62 to play all 70 games, win the Vezina again and add the Hart Memorial Trophy as league MVP; only Roy Worters, Chuck Rayner and Al Rollins had won the Hart as goaltenders before him. His asthma flared again the following season and left him with a reputation inside the game for being undependable, and on June 4, 1963, Montreal traded him to the New York Rangers with Phil Goyette and Don Marshall for Gump Worsley, Dave Balon, Leon Rochefort and Len Ronson.

He gave the Rangers the whole of 1963-64 and 33 games of 1964-65, finished that season with Baltimore of the AHL, and retired.

After three seasons away he returned with the St. Louis Blues in 1968. He shared the St. Louis net with Glenn Hall, posted a 1.96 goals-against average and shared the 1968-69 Vezina Trophy with Hall. It was his seventh, one more than Bill Durnan's six, and it came at 40. The Blues traded him to Toronto in May 1970; he played three seasons for the Maple Leafs, and a March 1973 trade sent him to Boston, where he appeared in eight regular-season games to close his NHL career. By the NHL's current count he played 837 regular-season games, going 437-246-145 with a 2.38 goals-against average and 82 shutouts, and 112 playoff games, 71-36 with a 2.12 goals-against average and 14 shutouts.

He then moved to the World Hockey Association as coach and general manager of the Quebec Nordiques for 1973-74, and played one more season, 1974-75, for the WHA's Edmonton Oilers before retiring for good.

Plante was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1978. He died of stomach cancer in a Geneva hospital on the night of February 26, 1986, at 57.

Sources: NHL.com (statistics and awards); NHL Records (player record, Hart and Vezina winners); NHL.com, 100 Greatest Players; NHL.com, This Date in History: Nov. 1; NHL.com, Stan Fischler on the mask; Hockey-Reference (1959-60 game log).