News

It takes a unique individual to voluntarily stand in the way of a puck travelling 160 kilometres an hour.

And like divas with their "it" bags or businessmen with polka-dot ties, professional goalies have long expressed their individuality with customized paint jobs on their masks.

Now amateurs are getting in on the act, paying big money for helmet art to illustrate passions and alter egos ranging from Mr. Potato Head to Metallica to portraits of their children.

"I'm just aiming for an expression of my likes," said Randy Hall, a 43-year-old father from Mississauga who plays senior men's hockey three times a week wearing a tribute to his favourite band, Rush, on his head.

"Hey, if it throws off the guys, then I guess it's worth spending the money," says Wolf Defrancesco, 24, a recreational goalie who spent $2,000 on paint jobs depicting his favourite NHL teams and, of course, wolves.

Over the past two decades, a small army of artists has emerged to fill the niche market, charging $350 and up to airbrush a fibreglass canvas.

While some artists supply pro athletes or are contracted by equipment manufacturers, most say their clientele is made up mainly of recreational players and parents for whom money is no object when it comes to outfitting their children.

Some are inspired by hockey heroes - like Curtis Joseph's ravenous dogs, or Ed Belfour's "Eddie the Eagle" masks.

But many amateurs, who aren't bound by team colours or mascots, have become increasingly creative when it comes to imagery.

"We've gotten to the point now where they're kind of a combination between kabuki theatre and [WWE] wrestling," said Douglas Hunter, author of A Breed Apart: An Illustrated History of Goaltending.

"Sometimes it's like, 'Oh, for the love of God, why is that on your head?' "

Goalie masks have been the subject of hockey lore ever since Montreal Canadiens goalie Jacques Plante was hit in the face by a puck in 1959, and became one of the first professional hockey players to wear a mask.

But for some goalies, that plain white fibreglass plate - made famously scary in the Friday the 13th movie series - just didn't cut it.

By the 1970s, they were adding their own personal touches, including Boston Bruins Gerry Cheevers who drew stitches on his, or Philadelphia Flyers goalie Doug Favell who wore an orange mask one Halloween.

"It's an interesting case of people being completely masked ... wanting to have some way of expressing themselves," Mr. Hunter said from his home in Port McNicoll, Ont. "It's the only professional sport that I can think of where somebody on the field has this kind of non-standard expressiveness."

And then the weekend warriors caught on.

Mr. Defrancesco remembers being seven years old and seeing Jocelyn Thibault, then with the Quebec Nordiques, wearing a mask with howling wolves on each side.

"After that I always toyed with getting paint jobs," said Mr. Defrancesco, a Toronto resident who has five $300 helmets, which he spent thousands more to paint. For his next mask, he plans to get a portrait of his mother holding him as a baby, he said.

For that, he'll go to Steve Nash of Eyecandyair in Woodbridge, Ont., who's part of a small industry of artists who devote themselves full-time to painting goalie helmets, often with car paint and several layers of glaze.

"I've had some strange requests," says Mr. Nash, who has done everything from Metallica portraits to one woman's dead pet cow. He declined one request from a male stripper, who wanted a portrait of himself wearing a G-string, he said.

Children's masks also make up a large portion of the market, said Ron Stefaniuk, a Mississauga-based artist who has been painting masks for 10 years. The demand has been so great that, last year, he quit his construction job and began painting masks full-time for his company, Acme Art Co.

Sometimes, people want scary illustrations to distract the competition. "At first people were just asking for replicas," said Marlene Ross, an artist from Brockville, Ont., who paints for NHL and amateur players.

"People are realizing, well, it's my head. And it's my personality, and I can ask for anything."

Masked men

After being hit in the face with a puck in 1959, Montreal Canadiens goalie Jacques Plante was the first in the NHL to don a mask.

In the 1970s, Boston Bruins

netminder Gerry Cheevers

personalized his mask - by

drawing stitch marks on it.

Last year, Minnesota Wild goalie Josh Harding had his mask

painted to support his sister's battle against breast cancer.