Wetaskiwin District Heritage Museum Centre & City of Wetaskiwin Archives

This week at the Heritage Museum we welcomed a complete set of goalie equipment from the 1960s. This includes the mask, shin pads, chest guard, gloves, and a pair of athletic shorts. The most interesting piece being the goalie mask. Before the 1960’s it was common for most ice hockey players to not wear any protective equipment for their head. This would lead to many players at all positions receiving major head injuries, as well as stitches on their face. In 1979 the National Hockey League (NHL) made it mandatory for all incoming players to wear a helmet, however all players already in the league before the 1980 season did not have too. The last player to compete in the NHL without a helmet was Craig MacTavish in the 1996-1997 season.  The trend for goaltenders to wear masks was started by Jacques Plante. Multiple goalies had tried masks before this, however they would abandon the ideas after only a few games. Plante would begin wearing a mask full time on November 1, 1959. In the first period of a game between the Montreal Canadians and New York Rangers Plante would take a shot to the face. After getting his face stitched, he refused to go back on the ice without his face mask, against his coaches wishes. These items are viewable in our collection, along with many other artifacts from Wetaskiwin’s composite high sports history at the museum.