ARTICLE: Media glorification of sports injuries fades, with one exception

[Ryan Goble]

From the Columbia Journalism Review...

ONE NIGHT IN MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, back in 1959, the hapless New York Rangers were playing the Montreal Canadiens, the symbol of Canada’s National Hockey League supremacy. Naturally, the 12 players on the ice wore cups to block any pucks that might sail toward groin regions. As for their teeth: They were safely stored in their lockers.

But you could see their faces, often flattened noses, maybe even count the stitches. None of the players wore a mask or a helmet to protect their heads, not even the goaltenders, who could expect to be peppered with 20 to 30 shots on goal.

And then something weird happened. The Canadiens’ goalie, Jacques Plante, got smacked in the face with the puck. Teammates picked him up off the ice, and helped him skate off. Twenty minutes later, he returned after getting seven stitches. But he was wearing a mask. No one ever wore a mask during a game back then, and someone in the Garden crowd yelled, “Hey, Plante, Halloween’s over!”

There were lots of yucks about that. Plante had actually been wearing a mask during practices, but never in a game. Didn’t matter that he could be whacked in the face. The team’s coach, Hector “Toe” Blake, had warned Plante that if he put on the mask during a game, the other teams would make fun of him.

Read the full article HERE.