OVERVIEW
Brave Face is billed by the publisher, Triumph Books, as "a fascinating and immersive chronicle of hockey's original maskless warriors."
More than 400 stitches decorated Terry Sawchuk's face during his 16 years as a goaltender in the National Hockey League, the result of high-speed collisions and slapshots that whizzed directly at his skull. All in a day’s work for an elite goalie of his era.
Before facemasks became standard equipment in the 1960s and '70s, men like Sawchuk, Glenn Hall, and Jacques Plante — the first goalie to ever wear a mask for an extended period in the NHL — put their bodies on the line in the name of hockey, enduring broken bones, damaged organs, and even psychological turmoil.
In this thoroughly researched book, Rob Vanstone illuminates the stories of these intrepid warriors while examining how the goaltender position has changed throughout the decades. As masks evolved from ghoulish-looking creations not out of place in horror films to today's caged helmets with custom artwork, goalies’ body positioning and tactics were similarly transformed along with NHL regulations.
Brave Face tells the stories of legendary goalies such as Sawchuk, Plante, Hall, Johnny Bower, Gump Worsley and Gerry Cheevers, while also exploring the lives and careers of lesser-known but nonetheless fascinating maskless marvels such as Gaye Cooley, Andy Brown, Wayne Rutledge, Russ Gillow, Bob Perreault and Ian Young.
There is also input from current NHL goalies James Reimer and Cam Talbot, both of whom marvel at their goaltending brethren from decades ago. The brave shot-blockers — non-goalies who nonetheless hurled their bodies in the path of flying pucks — are also saluted over 300 pages.
Told with charm and verve, this is an essential portrait of a uniquely brutal and harrowing chapter in hockey history.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rob Vanstone spent nearly 37 years at the Regina Leader-Post, ascending to the roles of sports columnist and sports editor, before joining the Saskatchewan Roughriders as their Senior Journalist and Historian on Feb. 21, 2023. Rob has written three previous books, all about the Roughriders. Brave Face is his second collaboration with Triumph Books. Rob and his wife, Chryssoula, live in Regina, Saskatchewan for the purpose of devotedly catering to their entitled rescue dog, Candy.
TO PURCHASE
From Triumph Books: Brave Face
From Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Brave-Face-Hockey-Goaltenders-Before/dp/1637272162
EXCERPT: From Chapter 18
The Dancing Bear was bare-faced for a fraction of his final season of professional hockey.
In that fragment of time, Wayne Rutledge made history — inadvertently, yet undeniably — by becoming the last maskless goalie in North American professional hockey.
He certainly didn’t plan it that way. Honestly, though, how many things did unfold as designed in the often-unpredictable, always-colourful World Hockey Association?
Rutledge wasn’t even supposed to play in a Feb. 17, 1978 game between the Houston Aeros and the visiting Cincinnati Stingers. Aeros head coach Bill Dineen had opted to start Lynn Zimmerman in net, and there he stayed well into the third period. Then came an unanticipated twist.
“With four minutes left, Zimmerman skated to the Aeros’ bench on a delayed penalty,” John McClain wrote in the Houston Chronicle. “He stopped to get some water, and Houston was forced to use Rutledge, who did not wear a mask.”
Why were the Aeros suddenly required to make a goaltending change on account of a what is conventionally a simple water break? That much remains unclear.
And why did Rutledge, who was otherwise masked for all six of his seasons in the WHA, enter the game without anything adorning his face?
“I didn’t think I’d be in that long,” Rutledge explained to McClain.
The cameo appearance in the cage turned out to be far more eventful than expected, from a short- and long-term perspective.
Rutledge was greeted by the Stingers’ Rick Dudley, who was foiled on a breakaway by what McClain described as “a beautiful stop.” The Aeros’ temporary ’tender made one more important save, on an undisclosed shooter, before Zimmerman returned to the game with the score tied at 3-3 and one minute remaining in the third period.
Cincinnati ended up winning 4-3 when swift-skating Peter Marsh tallied at 4:02 of overtime. Beware the strides of Marsh …
Dudley, coincidentally, had scored two goals for Cincinnati in its 7-3 victory over the Indianapolis Racers on Nov. 13, 1976, in the last game ever played by a full-time maskless goalie (Andy Brown).
The Racers’ head coach on that occasion was Jacques Demers, who was also the Stingers’ bench boss when they faced the momentarily maskless Rutledge on Feb. 17, 1978.
The latter contest, played at The Summit in Houston, was witnessed by 7,487 spectators, including Bob Rennison and his nephew (Richard) and niece (Rachel). In a diary entry dated Feb. 17, 1978, Rennison wrote: “Tonight me Rachel & Dickie went to the Aeros game. Cincy won 4-3. Rut played without a mask.”
Rennison recalled 44 years later that the general reaction at The Summit to Rutledge’s masklessness was that “nobody made a big deal of it.”
But it was a big deal to Rennison, who went downstairs after the game to get autographs and meet the players.
“When Rutledge walked by us, I asked him, ‘Why didn’t you wear a mask?’ ” Rennison remembered. “He said, ‘Well, I never used to wear a mask.’ ”
Brave Face is billed by the publisher, Triumph Books, as "a fascinating and immersive chronicle of hockey's original maskless warriors."
More than 400 stitches decorated Terry Sawchuk's face during his 16 years as a goaltender in the National Hockey League, the result of high-speed collisions and slapshots that whizzed directly at his skull. All in a day’s work for an elite goalie of his era.
Before facemasks became standard equipment in the 1960s and '70s, men like Sawchuk, Glenn Hall, and Jacques Plante — the first goalie to ever wear a mask for an extended period in the NHL — put their bodies on the line in the name of hockey, enduring broken bones, damaged organs, and even psychological turmoil.
In this thoroughly researched book, Rob Vanstone illuminates the stories of these intrepid warriors while examining how the goaltender position has changed throughout the decades. As masks evolved from ghoulish-looking creations not out of place in horror films to today's caged helmets with custom artwork, goalies’ body positioning and tactics were similarly transformed along with NHL regulations.
Brave Face tells the stories of legendary goalies such as Sawchuk, Plante, Hall, Johnny Bower, Gump Worsley and Gerry Cheevers, while also exploring the lives and careers of lesser-known but nonetheless fascinating maskless marvels such as Gaye Cooley, Andy Brown, Wayne Rutledge, Russ Gillow, Bob Perreault and Ian Young.
There is also input from current NHL goalies James Reimer and Cam Talbot, both of whom marvel at their goaltending brethren from decades ago. The brave shot-blockers — non-goalies who nonetheless hurled their bodies in the path of flying pucks — are also saluted over 300 pages.
Told with charm and verve, this is an essential portrait of a uniquely brutal and harrowing chapter in hockey history.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rob Vanstone spent nearly 37 years at the Regina Leader-Post, ascending to the roles of sports columnist and sports editor, before joining the Saskatchewan Roughriders as their Senior Journalist and Historian on Feb. 21, 2023. Rob has written three previous books, all about the Roughriders. Brave Face is his second collaboration with Triumph Books. Rob and his wife, Chryssoula, live in Regina, Saskatchewan for the purpose of devotedly catering to their entitled rescue dog, Candy.
TO PURCHASE
From Triumph Books: Brave Face
From Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Brave-Face-Hockey-Goaltenders-Before/dp/1637272162
EXCERPT: From Chapter 18
The Dancing Bear was bare-faced for a fraction of his final season of professional hockey.
In that fragment of time, Wayne Rutledge made history — inadvertently, yet undeniably — by becoming the last maskless goalie in North American professional hockey.
He certainly didn’t plan it that way. Honestly, though, how many things did unfold as designed in the often-unpredictable, always-colourful World Hockey Association?
Rutledge wasn’t even supposed to play in a Feb. 17, 1978 game between the Houston Aeros and the visiting Cincinnati Stingers. Aeros head coach Bill Dineen had opted to start Lynn Zimmerman in net, and there he stayed well into the third period. Then came an unanticipated twist.
“With four minutes left, Zimmerman skated to the Aeros’ bench on a delayed penalty,” John McClain wrote in the Houston Chronicle. “He stopped to get some water, and Houston was forced to use Rutledge, who did not wear a mask.”
Why were the Aeros suddenly required to make a goaltending change on account of a what is conventionally a simple water break? That much remains unclear.
And why did Rutledge, who was otherwise masked for all six of his seasons in the WHA, enter the game without anything adorning his face?
“I didn’t think I’d be in that long,” Rutledge explained to McClain.
The cameo appearance in the cage turned out to be far more eventful than expected, from a short- and long-term perspective.
Rutledge was greeted by the Stingers’ Rick Dudley, who was foiled on a breakaway by what McClain described as “a beautiful stop.” The Aeros’ temporary ’tender made one more important save, on an undisclosed shooter, before Zimmerman returned to the game with the score tied at 3-3 and one minute remaining in the third period.
Cincinnati ended up winning 4-3 when swift-skating Peter Marsh tallied at 4:02 of overtime. Beware the strides of Marsh …
Dudley, coincidentally, had scored two goals for Cincinnati in its 7-3 victory over the Indianapolis Racers on Nov. 13, 1976, in the last game ever played by a full-time maskless goalie (Andy Brown).
The Racers’ head coach on that occasion was Jacques Demers, who was also the Stingers’ bench boss when they faced the momentarily maskless Rutledge on Feb. 17, 1978.
The latter contest, played at The Summit in Houston, was witnessed by 7,487 spectators, including Bob Rennison and his nephew (Richard) and niece (Rachel). In a diary entry dated Feb. 17, 1978, Rennison wrote: “Tonight me Rachel & Dickie went to the Aeros game. Cincy won 4-3. Rut played without a mask.”
Rennison recalled 44 years later that the general reaction at The Summit to Rutledge’s masklessness was that “nobody made a big deal of it.”
But it was a big deal to Rennison, who went downstairs after the game to get autographs and meet the players.
“When Rutledge walked by us, I asked him, ‘Why didn’t you wear a mask?’ ” Rennison remembered. “He said, ‘Well, I never used to wear a mask.’ ”
