25 most bizarre goalie masks in NHL history
By C.L. Kohuss
No. 23: Who Even Needs A Mask?
A face really is an odd thing to use to stop a puck, isn’t it? You have arms, your chest, legs. Sure, those are all available. One could put them to pretty good use if so inclined.
For Terry Sawchuk? Nah, go big or seriously go home. The above photo of Sawchuk, who really was by many accounts pretty troubled off the ice, isn’t real. A makeup artist added those to his face to bring out the wounds he’d acquired by refusing to listen to reason. It isn’t real, but it’s pretty darn close.
During the shoot, someone must have come up with the idea to make him look like he was pieced together from a mixed bag of leftover parts. The remnants of various players who donated themselves to science, maybe? Or perhaps the photographer just read too much Mary Shelley.
In any case, Sawchuk still stands as one of the greatest to ever play the game. He’s just above Plante at No. 6 all time in wins. That’s what you get with a “bring it on, no mask required” mentality. It also gets you plenty of trips to the emergency room and will definitely limit future job openings. We hope he never had dreams of being a door-to-door salesman. One look through the peephole at this guy and it’s an absolute no-go. Though we hear he’d make a fantastic pitch artist for headache commercials.
To be fair, he did adopt the mask later on. Presumably after someone bought him a mirror.