He wore something not unlike a baseball catchers mask made of leather and metal wiring. There is speculation as to why he wore it but it was most likely to protect the glasses he had to wear. Honma played in two games during the Olympics and very little else is really known about the man. Jacques Plante, in , was considered the first NHL goaltender to wear a mask. It was crude and homemade.
Worn to protect his face from an injury sustained in a game which required stitches. He told his coach to forget about putting him back on the ice without his mask. He played 18 straight games in the mask, winning every one of them.
Once his face was healed, he played a game without it and the team lost. Suffice to say, the mask returned for good the following night and the rest as they say, is history. Cheevers painted stitches on his mask each time he got hit in the face. It showcases how much goaltenders take to their faces in the line of duty.
The mask is so iconic that it was recently used as the design for Boston Bruins Steve Shields mask. It was not until that a goaltender wore a mask full-time. Plante had previously worn his mask in practice, but coach Toe Blake refused to permit him to wear it in a game, fearing it would inhibit his vision. After being stitched up, Plante gave Blake an ultimatum, refusing to go back out onto the ice without the mask, to which Blake obliged not wanting to forfeit the game since NHL teams did not carry back-up goaltenders.
Plante went on a long unbeaten streak wearing the mask, which stopped when he was asked to remove it for a game. He donned the mask for the rest of his career after. When Plante introduced the mask into the game, many questioned his dedication and bravery; in response, Plante made an analogy to a person skydiving without a parachute. Although Plante faced some laughter, the fiberglass goaltender mask soon became the standard and a symbol of the game as typified by the famous painting "At The Crease," by Ken Danby.
This style of mask is no longer used by hockey leagues, yet its fame continues because of its use by horror movie icon Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th film series. The goaltender mask evolved further from the original face-hugging fiberglass mask designed by Plante. Dan Cloutier switched from this type of mask to the widely more popular full fiberglass citing safety reasons upon the advice of the Los Angeles Kings.
The second type of goaltender mask is a fiberglass mask with a cage attached in the middle. It can also be made out of carbon fiber, or a fiberglass and kevlar mix.
These masks are able to better withstand the impacts of hockey puck at higher speeds and are used at all levels of organized ice hockey. The advent of the goaltender mask changed the way goaltenders play, allowing them to make more saves on their knees without fear of serious head or facial injuries. Before the advent of the mask, most goaltenders stayed standing as much as possible. In the modern era, a goaltender is likely to make the majority of saves when he has one or both knees on the ice.
In a game between the New York Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens, Habs goaltender Jacques Plante took a puck to the face and demanded protection before returning to the net. He was chided by fans and coach alike for his fiberglass face covering, but the team went on an game winning streak and shortly thereafter, a trend was born. While protection was the impetus of goalie mask popularity, by the 's, innovation and creativity driven by the goaltenders themselves was taking over.
Gerry Cheevers of the Boston Bruins initiated the practice of goalie mask art when he asked his trainer to start adding stich marks to his mask any time a puck or stick hit him in the face.
Habs' Ken Dryden had his brother Dave build what was the beginnings of what we know of today's hockey masks when he cut the cage shape out of fiberglass. Phil Esposito added a cage over the mask itself to provide additional eye protection as well as a piece of fiberglass to give coverage to the back of the head. Nowadays, you're only likely to see masks with these face hugging styles in a museum or a horror movie.
But for a period of time, many goaltenders like John Davidson, Blue Jackets president of hockey operations, wore them, and, like Cheevers, applied art of their own.
It wouldn't take long for a new concept to take hold.
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