Those masked men of hockey

Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006 | 7:16 a.m.

Around 1930: Clint Benedict of the Montreal Maroons becomes the first goalie to wear a mask, a crude leather contraption he devised after his nose and cheekbone were injured when he was hit by a puck. Benedict wore it for only two games because it impaired his vision.

Around 1934: Roy Mosgrove, first in Winnipeg and later in the British Ice Hockey League, experiments with a wire-cage mask (like a catcher's mask) designed to protect his eyeglasses, which he wore while playing hockey.

1950s: Other goaltenders try wire-cage masks or clear shields, but only during practice because of complaints about glare or fogging during games - not to mention their tough-guy image with fans and opposing players.

1959: Jacques Plante of the Montreal Canadiens dons a flesh-tone mask made of fiberglass with cutouts for the eyes. Plante is ridiculed by other players, but he responds: "If you jump from an airplane without a parachute, is that considered an act of bravery?"

1960: Bill Burchmore, a promotional manager for Fiberglas Canada who helped develop Plante's original mask, fine-tunes it with fiberglass cloth and bars contoured to the goalie's face. The new version is called the "pretzel" design. This inspires the mask Ken Dryden would wear at Cornell and with the Canadiens in the early 1970s.

1962: Terry Sawchuk of the Detroit Red Wings becomes one of the first prominent goalies after Plante to wear a mask regularly.

1970: Plante's mask is expanded to include hard ridges on the forehead and to protrude over the ears. It withstands tests in which pucks were fired out of an air cannon at 120 mph.

Early 1970s: In a departure from the plain goalie mask, Doug Favell of the Philadelphia Flyers wears an orange mask in a game after his teammates spray-paint it as a Halloween prank.

1974: The last year that an NHL goaltender played without a mask (Andy Brown, Pittsburgh Penguins.)

1974-75: Tony Esposito of the Chicago Blackhawks designs a cage that fits over his mask to protect his eyes. This is considered the prototype for the modern-day goalie mask.

1976: Glenn "Chico" Resch of the New York Islanders sports an elaborately painted mask, paving the way for masks featuring ornate or flamboyant artwork that would become popular in the years to come.

1979: Flyers goalie Bernie Parent sustains a serious eye injury when he's struck with a stick through the eye slit of his mask. This accelerates a shift away from "molded" masks to helmet/cage or hybrid face mask/cage designs, which are deemed safer.

Present day: High-tech materials such as carbon fiber, which is also used in snowboards and mountain bikes; and Kevlar, which is also used in body armor, are common in goalie masks.

Sources: "A Breed Apart: An Illustrated History of Goaltending," by Douglas Hunter; nhl.com; Center Ice magazine; answers.com.

As the team's goalie and later assistant general manager and head coach, Clint Malarchuk was probably the most popular member of the old Las Vegas Thunder.

He also was the most interesting of the original Thunder. He had neckties with pigs on them, was paid in horses instead of dollars at contract time and owned and operated an emu farm.

That's what most local hockey fans remember about him.

Outside of Las Vegas, he is most remembered as the National Hockey League goalie who nearly bled to death on the ice.

During a 1989 game against the St. Louis Blues, Malarchuk was between the pipes for the Buffalo Sabres when Blues right winger Steve Tuttle and Sabres defenseman Uwe Krupp collided near his goal crease.

Tuttle's leg kicked into the air and his skate slashed Malarchuk's jugular vein.

It was one of the most gruesome injuries ever witnessed at a sporting event. Even the TV cameras turned away as a giant pool of blood formed on the ice after Malarchuk flung off his mask and collapsed. Several of his teammates vomited on the ice.

"Am I going to live?" Malarchuk asked the Buffalo trainers.

More than 300 stitches were required to close the wound in Malarchuk's neck. Had Tuttle's skate struck him 1/8 of an inch higher on his jugular, doctors estimate Malarchuk would have died within two minutes.

Malarchuk, who still lives on a ranch near Gardnerville and is in his first year as Columbus Blue Jackets goaltender coach, said he had heard persons who sever their jugular vein usually die within three minutes.

"I thought I've got a lot of repenting to do in three minutes," he said.

After Malarchuk's accident, the NHL mandated that goalies masks be fitted with a protective throat flaps.

Mike McKenna, who has been outstanding for the Wranglers this season, owes plenty to former netminders such as Clint Benedict, Jacques Plante and Gerry Cheevers. Otherwise, McKenna might look like Glenn Hall.

A few years ago, McKenna met Hall, known as "Mr. Goalie" during a professional hockey career that spanned from 1952 to 1971. In 1998, Hall was listed at No. 16 on a Hockey News list of the game's 100 greatest players.

Hall, now 75, mostly played between the pipes without a mask.

"His face was just mangled," McKenna said of his meeting Hall. "Without a mask, your face ends up looking like hamburger."

With good reason, McKenna, who was called up to Milwaukee of the American Hockey League on Monday, is a mask historian. After a practice last week, someone heard a conversation topic and said the first hockey mask was used in 1956.

McKenna quickly corrected him. "No," McKenna said, "Clint Benedict."

Around 1930, Benedict of the Montreal Maroons became the first goalie to wear a mask.

"It was crude leather," Mc-Kenna said. Because it impaired his vision, Benedict only wore it for two games.

"Jacques Plante popularized it, in a modern, molded-fiberglass style" in 1959, McKenna said of the former Montreal Canadiens keeper.

And McKenna, Kevin Nastiuk and Marc Magliarditi are grateful to Plante, and those who helped mold the mask into current models that are as artistic as they are protective. Each of the goalies who has played for the Wranglers this season revealed details of his mask to the Sun.

Marc "Mags" Magliarditi, last season's starter, pondered retirement because of chronic wrist ailments, but he returned to practice last week . He played as a reserve in Omaha of the AHL for two games and is now poised to be the Wranglers' backup goalie.

His slick, Las Vegas-themed headgear was conceived by NHL mask artist John Pepe of New Hampshire. A roulette wheel highlights the bottom portion, with the ball in No. 20 - his jersey number.

The Luxor pyramid, Stratosphere tower, "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign and an Orleans sign are featured.

"I had a vision," Magliarditi said, "and it came out 100 times better."

His father raced Indy-type cars on an amateur circuit, and Mike McKenna raced for a couple of summers, too. Because of that interest, he was elated over the summer when he found one of Cleber Frank's advertisements in the back of one of his father's racing magazines.

Frank, who designed helmets for racing luminaries such as Christian and Emerson Fittipaldi, Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villaneuve, lives in Las Vegas. "Wow," McKenna said, "I should give this guy a call."

A checkered, deep red and purple flag is the backdrop of his helmet, with a stylish M on the forehead and on the chin - McKenna's initials. The checkered flag is Frank's trademark.

The No. 56, McKenna's jersey number and the number on his father's race cars, is melded into the lower M. On the back, there are waving black-and-white-checkered and American flags, and a smiley-face figure with a halo - a tribute to his high school team, the St. Lawrence Saints.

"Cleber was awesome," Mc-Kenna said. "It looks like it's in motion. It's aggressive, like I am. It really 'pops' when the sun hits it."

The Wranglers' newest netminder obtained his Carolina Hurricanes-themed mask last season with the club's AHL affiliate in Lowell, Mass.

The Hurricanes' logo dominates the top, and its red-stripped edges are lined with black boxes. A Carolina flag and hockey stick adorn each side. The outside of the chrome cage is red, but the inside was left untouched to enhance Kevin Nastiuk's vision.

"Hurricane Nasty," a takeoff on his name, is written along the chin. A team from Bauer Nike produced it.

"You lay down on the ground, then they lay a mold over your face and pad it down," Nastiuk said. "Then it goes to the factory. The cage and mask are designed perfectly for your head."

He said the total cost of the average headgear is about $2,000, which the Hurricanes picked up. A fan of heavy metal music, Nastiuk's favorite mask is the Metallica-themed one worn by Los Angeles Kings goalie Jason Labarbera.

Where the rubber meets the ice

0 to 100 mph! Getting hit by a hockey puck can be extremely painful if it misses any part of the padding players wear. Goalies wear extensive protection from head to toe the only exposed parts of their bodies being the back of their knees. When an NHL player shoots a "slap shot" the puck can travel at speeds in excess of 90 mph. A "slap shot" requires a quick windup, and then the player drives his stick at the puck, striking the ice just behind the puck which causes the stick to bend. After making contact with the puck the stick "unbends", whiplashing the puck toward its destination.

Fact: Official hockey pucks are made of vulcanized rubber and kept frozen before games to minimize bounce. Most are made in the Czech Republic.

Weight: 6 ounces.

Dimensions: 3 inches in diameter; 1 inch in height.

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