Things that changed Hockey

[Nalyd Psycho]

Originally Posted by Canadiens1958

Puckhandling goalies. First would be Jacques Plante who started handling the puck to counter the dump and chase in the early 1950's. Others followed.

Charlie Rayner would be before Plante.

[Canadiens1958]

Originally Posted by Nalyd Psycho

Charlie Rayner would be before Plante.

Fred Brophy - goalie for Westmount of the CAHL actually scored a goal during the 1904-05 season. Other goalies of the era came close.

Charlie Rayner would make a save and at times rush up ice with the puck, coming close to the other teams net at times BUT other than the novelty factor it did not serve any strategic purpose.

Jacques Plante became the first goaltender to handle the puck to counter an offensive strategy - the dump and chase.

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Even if Raynor is the one who did it first, Plante is the one who inspired copycats, and thus "changed hockey." Similar to how Hall used the butterfly decades before Roy, but Roy is the one who popularized it.

[Peter9]

Originally Posted by John Flyers Fan

I clearly stated that Hextall wasn't the first ever goalie to play the puck.

That being said, he completely took it to another level than had been seen before. Firing 100 foot outlet passes, etc.

The next generation of goalies to come clearly picked up up and even expanded on Hextall's puckhandling.


Just like Orr wasn't the first defenseman to rush the puck, and Gretzky wasn't the first player to set up behind the net. They both however were sooooo much better at it than anyone who previously did that, and made it incredibly popular amonst the next generation of player (Potvin, Bourque, Coffey, Leetch etc.) Or (Lemieux, Oates, Gilmour, Lafontaine, etc.).

You don't have to be the first to be the one credited for changing the game. Plante wasn't the first maskwearer.

No, he wasn't because Clint Benedict wore a sort of half mask for a few games while recovering from injury. But Plante was the first goaltender in the NHL to wear a mask regularly, and it was he who popularized it, to the extent that a decade later almost every goaltender in the NHL was wearing one.

When Plante started going behind the net and then roving from the net to pass the puck, every goaltender copied him and within a couple of years every goaltender was doing it. In stories written by hockey historians, even amateur ones on this blog, Benedict is always mentioned when credit is given to Plante for his mask innovation. And in fairness Plante should always get mention as the innovator when roving from the net and puck distribution by goaltenders is mentioned.

[Peter9]

Originally Posted by pappyline

Yeh, that system worked well. I remember being fascinated by it. Of course my town had a natural ice rink & all they did was scrape the snow off between periods.

The more I think about it, the more I remember that it was said that the manual system of resurfacing the ice at Maple Leafs Garden did a better job than the Zamboni, at least the Zambonie of the time, but the Zamboni replaced it because it was quicker and could be operated by a single person.

My village, too, had a natural ice rink. And between periods we just scraped off the snow stirred up by the players. About the time of the sixth or seventh game of the day, that ice surface was a bit of a mess. You could still play hockey on it, but your pass might slow down a bit and your skating wasn't as quick.

I lived on Lake Simcoe, north of Toronto near Keswick, for a few years in the mid-1950s, and we skated and played hockey on the ice-covered lake. It was like a beautiful dream, playing hockey from dawn and all day into the night with truck headlights providing illumination when it became dark. Oh, and one of the greatest of pleasures was hanging onto a rope on our skates behind a pickup truck as it went 50 or 60 miles per hour across the ice. Sadly, more often than not, the lake was covered by snow, too deep to bother clearing it--at least too much for us with our limited means.

[Canadiens1958]

Originally Posted by Peter9

No, he wasn't because Clint Benedict wore a sort of half mask for a few games while recovering from injury. But Plante was the first goaltender in the NHL to wear a mask regularly, and it was he who popularized it, to the extent that a decade later almost every goaltender in the NHL was wearing one.

When Plante started going behind the net and then roving from the net to pass the puck, every goaltender copied him and within a couple of years every goaltender was doing it. In stories written by hockey historians, even amateur ones on this blog, Benedict is always mentioned when credit is given to Plante for his mask innovation. And in fairness Plante should always get mention as the innovator when roving from the net and puck distribution by goaltenders is mentioned.

The important difference is that Jacques Plante made the mask a standard piece of hockey equipment and by doing so facilitated the introduction of other pieces of safety equipment at the youth levels.Granted the weekly televised hockey games with a masked goalie were a huge factor as well.

Example - hockey helmets. Primitive hockey helmets had been around for years going back to the thirties at least. At the time Jacques Plante INSISTED on wearing the mask only Charlie Burns - the result of a serious head injury wore a helmet. Others wore helmets as a temporary measure while recovering from an injury.

Once young goalies started wearing masks, parents of skaters started insisting on helmets. Slowly the demand for proper safety equipment grew. No more magazines for shin pads or other improvisations.

[Big Phil]

Bobby Orr is a huge one for a couple of reasons. He changed the game on the ice. His play inspired defensemen to rush the puck and be even more involved than Kelly and Harvey were before him. Which is what we saw with Robinson, Park, and then the likes of Coffey, Bourque.

But off the ice he made just as much of an impact. He was the one who brought Alan Eagleson into the game. NHLers were picking cotton prior to 1967 and about the only smart player prior to that was Ted Lindsay who tried to orchestrate the union 10 years earlier.

I also think the WHA changed the game a lot. When Bobby Hull signed that big contract in '72 NHL teams followed suit. They doubled your pay to keep you, or the WHA did likewise to lure you

The '72 Series was huge as well. We looked at ourselves and our opponents differently. This prompted the Canada Cup starting in '76 and eventually it spread to allowing the NHL to be in the Olympics

While it's not quite on the same level I think the '96 World Cup and '98 Olympics changed a lot in Canada. Prior to that Canada won every Canada Cup since 1981 and always had either one of Gretzky or Lemieux as the best player in the NHL by far. Then other countries started to win and the panic mode was set. Canada has pretty much reclaimed the crown as best hockey nation (but we need proof in February) and the "Summit" of Canadian hockey changed that

I think John Ferguson also gets underrepresented when talking about impact. Yes there were tough guys prior to him, but none were brought in with the pressing need to protect their stars like him.

[thefifthsedin]

Originally Posted by Big Phil

Canada has pretty much reclaimed the crown as best hockey nation

as in november 2009? ... perhaps it depends on what you mean by 'pretty much' ... i think the only thing canada has on russia for the 2010 olympics is home ice advantage [and potentially shaky officials]