I’ve always been a big fan of goalies. As a kid one of my favorite things about hockey was all the great artwork on goalie masks and the bright pads. You know, before 90% of goalies decided to get boring and make their pads mostly white. “It blends in better with the ice, makes it harder for the shooter!” Blah blah blah. I don’t care. BRING BACK FUN PADS.
Anyway…we were talking about goalie masks one day in the staff chat and then a couple weeks ago on DOY Twitter and Facebook we asked you to tell us your favorite Bruins goalies masks in their history. Because we knew most would just say Cheevers, we asked you to tell us your favorite masks other than his. Here’s what you crazy guys and gals told us.
DOY bud Greg K (@GJFKessler) was quick to point out a loophole in our request…Steve Shields tribute mask to Cheevers:
A few more of you voted for this one as well, but for the first time ever Greg K was first at something. You big jerks. Just kidding, we love you. Maybe. Possibly.
The goalie that received the most votes was by far Bruins great Andy Moog, who for some reason signs autographs Andy Moox:
Anyone, his classic bear mask was certainly a crowd favorite. I like to think he wore it in the bedroom when he was getting frisky.
His mask certainly looks more like a bear than that tiger/bear logo on the shoulder the B’s used to have. Sweet, sweet tiger/bear. Tigear. TIGGER?!!?
Former British monarch Lord Byron Dafoe got a lot of love from you folks as well. Can’t blame you. The guy had a fun mask.
Starting to notice you folks love masks with bears on them. You kids got a furry fetish or something?
Dafoe had some decent masks on other teams too. His zombie Thrashers mask was fun, but I kind of love his Kings mask.
That Kings mask is gorgeous. Couldn’t find any pics of him actually wearing it, but to be honest I pulled a Colorado Avalanche and didn’t put in too much effort.
Your next favorite seemed to be Blaine Lacher’s “Lachness Monster” mask, and again I can’t disagree with you. The only thing that might’ve made it better would be today’s technology and new paints that can make this shit glow in the dark.
Tim “Welcome to the Bunker, We’ve Got Supplies and Games” Thomas got a lot of votes for his various masks. Thomas did have a few really good ones, from his bear mask to his Fred Cusick Winter Classic tribute mask to his “Fuck You, I’m Mad, Watch Me Ruin the League This Year” white mask.
Too bad having a historic 2011 playoff and literally dragging a team to a Cup on his back brought out the crazy. Does anyone know where Timmy is? I mean, he can’t be in his bunker 24/7 right? He has to come out and check for his shadow to see if we’re getting six more weeks of lockout or not, right?
A handful of you loved Rask’s Winter Classic Fenway mask, which he used to pitch a shutout on the bench. Not a single puck made it past that bench door. Fenway was a fucking AWFUL venue for an outdoor game, by the way. No matter what you say to disagree, you are wrong. The view was terrible in 85% of the seats. Gillette was a MUCH better venue. Or rather, would have been had the Bruins shown up. I only remember holding Robb in the parking lot and pretending it didn’t happen.
Where were we? Oh yeah, Rask’s Fenway mask.
Remember when all the dude bros on Twitter were all like “YEAH BUD RASK HATES THE FUCKING YANKEES TOO! WOOOOOO! YANKEES SUCK! YANKEES SUCK!” Nah. He probably doesn’t give a shit. It’s called pandering you simpletons.
Robb is a big fan of that mask Rask wore, for like, one game before saying it didn’t fit well when really he thought it was bad luck because he had a HORRIBLE game. He did his best Ondrej Pavelec impression that night. It is going to be SO fun this season when Lundqvist gets hurt and Pavelec is starting full time for the Rangers. We’ll laugh and laugh and laugh.
And as many of you pointed out, Rask’s current mask essentially looks like an updated, more vicious version/tribute to Andy Moox’s mask.
A few of you also went way back and threw Gilles Gilbert (apparently pronounced Gil-Bear, like a Final Fantasy random encounter with a money stealing grizzly). His mask was simple, yet classic. It was a simpler time back then. It was after there were Nazis on the streets of America, but also before there were Nazis on the streets of America.
I’m not entirely sure he has a full face under there. In that picture he kind of looks like a guy you’d see on the news busted for serial killing while his oblivious neighbor tells a reporter “he was always so quiet and nice…”
After those guys, your responses were pretty varied. One vote here, one vote there. But hey, we’ll go through ’em all. I should’ve prefaced that and mentioned that I have a shitty memory and will probably forget a few so if you bitch at me later, please know I don’t care/won’t remember anyway.
A couple of you whacky folks like Jonas Gustavsson’s mask more than you liked his short stint with the Bruins.
That Winter Classic mask is pretty fucking awesome. Shame he didn’t get to wear it. Can’t believe me and Robb paid $200 to see look at ice that players didn’t even play on.
I will say though, it was totally worth going just to see the crowd reaction when Simple Plan came out. Half the crowd just said “Who?” while the other half laughed hysterically and mocked them. NHL, you couldn’t be more out of touch if you tried.
One of you brought up a mask I either just don’t remember or never saw but love the concept. Scott Bailey (had to look this up, he only played 19 games for the Bruins) had a simple yet kind of awesome Venom mask.
Good on you bud. Love it. Your 19 games were worth just the mask I bet.
I think one of my favorites from this list ended up being Zane McIntyre, just for the back of his mask. A few of you sent this in and I had never seen the back. I liked the simple but fun overall design:
Clean look, nice tributes to B’s history. Good on you, kid. But the picture on the back is just great. What a nice grandson Zane is.
Just fantastic. Make this kid Rask’s back-up just because of the mask. You know, assuming you folks haven’t run Rask out of town by the time the season starts.
A couple of you were upset it took so long for someone to suggest Hannu Toivonen’s mask. I now present his mask before you light me on fire.
Malcolm Subban hasn’t exactly had the best start to his young career, but his mask is faaaaaaantastic. Just look at it. LOOK AT IT!
Great, great mask. One of the versions has a Bible verse on the back, but if we’re going to allow masks with fictional characters like Venom on this list, we have to allow masks with other fictional characters like god and Jesus.
Manny Fernandez seems to have gone with another Moox tribute mask. Fernandez is fun to say. That’s… that’s really all I got for Manny. This bear has blue eyes you could just get lost in though.
A couple folks liked John Blue’s simple all black mask. This way right after a game he could go to his part time gig as a cat burglar without having to change. You have no idea how much time that must’ve saved him.
Andrew Raycroft went with an angry bear one of you liked, but really I think he should’ve just had his mask look like Rask’s face.
Anton Khudobin with yet another angry bear. We get it. They’re called the Bruins and a bruin is a bear. Giving him an F- for not going with a house elf reference.
Rob Tallas’s jersey is better than his mask. Pooh Bear 4 Life.
Hello, My Name is Chad Johnson goes with double logos and a Cheevers tribute. This seems like the type of generic mask you’d get if you’re not sure if you’ll be in the NHL or AHL after training camp.
At least Jon Casey changed up the color on the bear. Now I wish there were actual blue bears. I guess we could dye a polar bear but they’re endangered and that is probably illegal. Plus we’d get mauled before we even got started.
Though we can’t forget about Jon Casey’s finest moment.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yeFak3D7MU]One of you scally wags voted Tim Cheveldae. You whacky bastard.
Tim was obviously more well known for playing on the original Jets. You know, the ones that actually had Teemu Selanne and didn’t adopt the Phoenix Coyotes history.
Well, that was fun. We’ll have to do something like this again sometime. Until next time, go fuck yourself.
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