Jacques Plante is a Canadian professional ice hockey goalkeeper. During his career from 1947 to 1975, he was considered one of the most important innovators in hockey.
Jacques Plante‘s full name is Joseph Jacques Omer Plante and he was named the “revolutionary” of ice hockey because he was the first to make improvements to this kind of sport and bring ice hockey more popular.
In 2017, Joseph Jacques Omer Plante was nominated as one of the “100 Greatest Ice Hockey Players” in history. (100 Greatest NHL Players).
Jacques Plante is not the first goalkeeper to wear a mask in hockey. Elizabeth Graham goalkeeper of the Golden Gaels women’s hockey team (Queen’s University) is the first person to use the mask in this sport in 1927.
But Joseph Jacques Omer Plante was the first goalkeeper to make it more popular and at the same time he developed and tested many different masks to choose the most suitable for this sport. Moreover, under support by other hockey experts, he developed the first type of mask that became the forerunner of the type of mask associated with helmets that we often see today.
He was also the first hockey goalkeeper who regularly guide and cheer his fellow attackers through his duty to defend the goal.
During 10 years of playing for Montreal Canadiens, he and his teammates made Montreal Canadiens honored the “Dream Team” in 1985.
Jacques Plante ranked seventh among NHL goalkeepers in history with a total of 437 matches during the 28 years of his career as an ice hockey goalkeeper.
The only NHL goalkeeper ever won five Stanley Cups, Plante also won the NHL Vezina Cup – awarded to NHL’s best goalkeeper – seven times in his career.
He also won the Trophy because he was the tournament’s most valuable player. In 1978, three years after retirement, Plante was introduced to the Hockey Arena.
