He shoots... and he scares!
Perhaps the most iconic symbol of the slasher genre – and one of the most iconic symbols of horror at large – is the classic 80s goalie mask. Although it didn't appear until the third movie in the franchise, Jason Voorhees' mask has now become the thing Friday the Thirteenth is known for. In fact, 80s-style hockey masks have become so synonymous with horror that they're probably associated more with slasher movies than with hockey, especially since the masks goalies wear today look quite different.
As both a hockey fan and horror-lover, I find the intersection of hockey masks and horror movies both a point of delight and fascination. Today, I decided to learn a little more about the history of hockey masks and horror, and how the two have become inextricably intertwined.
Let's start with some background on the goalie mask. The first NHL goalie to wear a mask in a game was Montreal Canadiens goaltender Jacques Plante in 1959. While Plante was originally mocked for refusing to play without a mask, the practice ended up taking off after his team went on a winning streak. His mask, which was just a piece of fibreglass contoured to fit his face, was pretty creepy looking, especially once it had taken some wear and tear.
However, Plante was far from the only goalie with a creepy mask. In 1968 Gerry Cheevers, then-goalie for the Boston Bruins, debuted the first painted goalie mask. The design he chose? A set of stitches everywhere he got hit in the face and would have been injured had his mask not protected him.
So, hockey masks, whether intentionally or not, were certainly creepy looking – but how did Jason Voorhees end up wearing one? Well, 3D effects supervisor Martin Jay Sadoff happened to have a goalie mask with him onset of Friday the Thirteenth Part III, which he used for a lighting test, leading director Steve Miner to give Jason a hockey mask in the movie itself.
In universe, Jason just steals the mask from one of his victims as a way to hide his face. The folks over at Bar Down have a theory that Jason used to be a star hockey player prior to his death, but I don't know – I have a feeling he would have been frequently sent off for slashing.
Jason's mask has become an intrinsic part of his character design, and many horror fans have since learned to make their own masks either for costumes or as collectibles.
While Jason's mask has stayed largely the same (although there have been many iterations as more movies have come out), the goalie masks worn by hockey players today look very different from what they wore in 1982, further cementing the 80s style goalie mask as being an icon of horror, not hockey.
That being said, many goalies have continued to wear creepy masks, even as the general design has gotten less unsettling. During his time in the NHL, the aptly named Jason Bacashishua was known for wearing Friday-the-Thirteenth themed masks with pictures of Jason Voorhees. In 2008, then-Tampa-Bay-Lightning-goalies Mike Smith and Olaf Kolzig wore Saw-themed masks, both of which were later auctioned off for charity. In his tenure with the Philadelphia Flyers, Steve Mason wore multiple zombie-themed masks, notably one featuring several of his teammates in undead form. And as a Canucks fan, I would be remiss not to mention goaltender Thatcher Demko's current mask, which features a zombified Jonny Canuck terrorizing his opposition.
What are your favourite creepy hockey masks? Do you associate goalie masks more with hockey or with horror? Let me know down in the comments!