Jacques Plante
Joseph Jacques Omer Plante was a renowned Canadian ice hockey goaltender born on January 17, 1929, in Shawinigan Falls, Quebec. Plante began playing hockey as a defenseman at a young age, but he transitioned to the goalie position during his school years, where he discovered his true passion. He progressed through the ranks, eventually joining the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL at age twenty-three. Plante was known for his innovative approach to goaltending; he pioneered the use of a mask to protect against facial injuries, a practice that was initially met with skepticism but later became standard in the sport.
Throughout his career, Plante achieved remarkable success, winning the Vezina Trophy seven times and contributing to the Canadiens' dominance in the 1950s, which included five consecutive Stanley Cup victories. Off the ice, he was a unique personality—outspoken and artistic, with interests that extended beyond hockey. After retiring from professional play, he remained involved in the sport as a general manager, commentator, and sportswriter. Plante's impact on hockey is significant, not only for his skills as a goaltender but also for his efforts to enhance player safety and innovate the position. He passed away on February 26, 1986, in Geneva, Switzerland, and was posthumously inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1978.
Jacques Plante
Hockey Player
- Born: January 17, 1929
- Birthplace: Shawinigan Falls, Quebec, Canada
- Died: February 26, 1986
- Place of death: Geneva, Switzerland
Sport: Ice hockey
Early Life
Joseph Jacques Omer Plante was born on January 17, 1929, in Shawinigan Falls, Quebec, Canada. At the age of ten, he started playing in hockey as a defenseman. He had to use a pair of his father’s old skates. The skates were too large for him, so Jacques knitted a number of pairs of socks to fill the boots. There were eleven children in the Plante family, and every one of them had to learn how to knit; otherwise, they would have had to go without socks, caps, and scarves. Jacques got his first chance to play goalie in school hockey. The regular goalie failed to make one of the games, so Jacques asked for the opportunity to play the position. The position became his for the rest of the season.
The Road to Excellence
By the time he was fourteen years old, Jacques was playing in the Quebec League as a substitute goalie for the senior team in Shawinigan. He loved playing hockey and even played for three different teams at one time, which led to a brief suspension from the Quebec League. Jacques was motivated not only by love of the game but also by financial necessity.
Jacques’s next step on the road to the National Hockey League(NHL) was to join a minor-league professional team, the Montreal Royals of the Quebec Senior League. Jacques stayed at this level for three seasons before he was called up by the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens. At the age of twenty-three, he had impressed the Canadiens’ management with his skill as a goalie in the minor leagues. The Montreal team was in need of a quality goalie because Bill Durnan had retired in 1950, and his replacement, Gerry McNeil, was having problems at the position.
During the 1952-1953 season, Jacques played in only three games for the Canadiens. He was nervous in his debut game as the starting goalie in the next season, but he did not let nerves affect his performance. He had a shutout in his first starting game. Jacques competed in seventeen games during the 1953-1954 season, and five of those games were shutouts. The Canadiens had become convinced that Jacques could be the team’s goalie. The 1954-1955 season was Jacques’s first complete season with Montreal.
The Emerging Champion
In Jacques’s first complete season, he appeared in fifty-two games, five of which were shutouts. He was more than a talented goalie: He was his own man and did things both on and off the ice as he saw fit. As a goalie, he was an innovator. Jacques had learned as an amateur that it was necessary, on occasion, for the goalie to go get the puck when it was behind the net. His “roaming” style of play was puzzling to Montreal management, but it was soon adopted by other goalies in the league.
Off the ice, Jacques was somewhat of a loner. He loved to read and also was a talented painter. Jacques was not a typical hockey player. He was outspoken, which made him popular with the sportswriters but made management extremely nervous. He also suffered from asthma, which made it difficult to compete on occasion.
The 1955-1956 season was one of Jacques’s best. His skills as a skater served him well in his style of play. He finished the season with the remarkable goals against average of 1.86, and he won the first of his seven Vezina Trophies, an award for the goaltender who allows the fewest goals. Jacques won this award five times in a row, and the Canadiens as a team showed its dominance by consecutively winning the Stanley Cup five times. During the mid- to late 1950’s, the Montreal Canadiens were an awesome team. Jacques was proud of what he contributed to the team and would sometimes get angry when it was implied that his job as goaltender for the Canadiens was easy.
Continuing the Story
In 1959, Jacques brought another innovation to hockey. During a game with the New York Rangers, he suffered a bad facial cut and had to have a large number of stitches applied to close it. He was able to return to the game by putting on a plastic mask that he had devised. Jacques was ridiculed for wearing the mask, but he knew that, for a goaltender, protection for the face was vital. Management felt that the mask would impair his vision and that he was showing a lack of toughness. It took several years, but other goalies began wearing masks on a regular basis.
Jacques played with Montreal through the 1962-1963 season and then was traded to the New York Rangers. He had never been popular with the fans in Montreal because of his uniqueness as a goalie and his outspokenness. He played with the Rangers for only two seasons, then played part of the second season with a Rangers minor-league team.
At the age of thirty-six, Jacques announced his retirement from hockey. For the next three years, he was involved in various activities: He was a sportswriter, television commentator, and president of the Quebec Junior Hockey League.
In 1968, Jacques came back to play for the St. Louis Blues. Sharing the goaltending duties with Glenn Hall, Jacques won his seventh Vezina Trophy. The Blues kept him for two seasons before trading him to the Toronto Maple Leafs. In March of 1973, he was traded to the Boston Bruins, where he retired at the end of the 1972-1973 season.
Jacques agreed to become general manager of the Quebec Nordiques of the World Hockey Association (WHA). He tried to play once more when he joined the Edmonton Oilers of the WHA, but he played for merely one season and permanently hung up his skates in 1975. Jacques was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1978. He succumbed to stomach cancer on February 26, 1986, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Summary
Jacques Plante should be remembered not only as one of hockey’s greatest goaltenders but also for the innovations he brought to the game. He won the Vezina Trophy seven times and the Hart Trophy for most valuable player once. During his stay with the Montreal Canadiens, the team won five consecutive Stanley Cups. Jacques was flamboyant and outspoken; he worked to make hockey safer for those who played it. He was a player with an impact who revolutionized the way goalies do their job.
Bibliography
Dryden, Steve, and Michael Ulmer, eds. The Top One Hundred NHL Hockey Players of All Time. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1999.
Farber, Michael, Mark Mravic, and Richard Deitsch. “Monsieur Butterfly.” Sports Illustrated 98, no. 23 (June 9, 2003): 23.
Hunter, Douglas. A Breed Apart: An Illustrated History of Goaltending. Toronto: Penguin, 1998.
McDonell, Chris. Hockey’s Greatest Stars: Legends and Young Lions. Richmond Hill, Ont.: Firefly Books, 2005.
Orr, Frank, and George Tracz. The Dominators: The Remarkable Athletes Who Changed Their Sport Forever. Toronto: Warwick, 2004.
Plante, Jacques. On Goaltending. Montreal: Robert Davies, 1998.
Plante, Jacques, and Andy O’Brien. The Jacques Plante Story. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1972.