Jacques Plante Joseph Jacques Omer " Jake the Snake " Plante ( January 17 , 1929 – February 27 , 1986 ) was a Canadian professional goaltender . He grew up in Shawinigan , Quebec , and began to play hockey in 1932 , becoming a goaltender at young age since his asthma impaired his skating ability . Plante started to play organized hockey at age 12 , and his first professional game was at age 18 . He played for the Montreal Canadiens from 1953 to 1963 ; during his tenure , the team won the Stanley Cup six times , including five consecutive wins . He was then traded to the New York Rangers for whom he played for two seasons - 1963 - 64 and 1964 - 65 . Plante first retired in 1965 , but was persuaded to return to the NHL to play for the expansion St . Louis Blues in 1968 . He was later traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1970 , and to the Boston Bruins in 1973 . He joined the World Hockey Association , first as coach and general manager for the Quebec Nordiques in 1973 – 74 ; he then played goal for the Edmonton Oilers in 1974 – 75 , ending his professional career with that team . Plante is considered one of the most important innovators in hockey . Most notably , Plante was the first NHL goaltender to wear a goaltender mask in regulation play on a regular basis . With the assistance of other experts , he developed and tested many versions of the goaltender mask , including the forerunner of today ' s mask / helmet combination . Plante was the first goaltender to regularly play the puck outside his crease in support of his team ' s defencemen , and often instructed his teammates from behind the play , as the goaltender usually has the best view of the game . Plante was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1978 , was chosen as the goaltender of the Canadiens ' " dream team " in 1985 . The Montreal Canadiens retired Plante ' s jersey , # 1 , the following year . He died in Geneva , on February 27 , 1986 , shortly after he had been diagnosed with untreatable stomach cancer . He was buried in Sierre . Early life . Plante was born on January 17 , 1929 on a farm near Mont Carmel , Quebec , the first of 11 children . The family moved to Shawinigan , Quebec . In 1932 , Plante began to play hockey , skateless and with a tennis ball , using a goaltender ' s hockey stick his father had carved from a tree root . When he was five years old , Plante fell off a ladder and broke his hand ; the fracture failed to heal properly and affected his playing style during his early hockey career ; he underwent successful corrective surgery as an adult . Plante suffered from asthma starting in early childhood , which prevented him from skating for extended periods ; because of this , he naturally gravitated to playing goaltender . As his playing progressed , Jacques received his first regulation goaltender ' s stick for Christmas of 1936 . Plante ' s first foray into organized hockey came at age 12 . He was watching his school ' s team practice , when the coach ordered the goaltender off the ice after a heated argument over his play , and Plante asked to replace him . The coach permitted him to play since there was no other available goaltender ; it quickly became apparent that Plante could hold his own , despite the other players being many years older than him . He impressed the coach and stayed on as the team ' s number one goaltender . Two years later , Plante was playing for five different teams , including the local factory team , and teams in the midget , juvenile , junior and intermediate categories . After being told by his father that the rest of the players on the factory team were being paid because they were company employees , Plante decided to demand a salary from the team ' s coach ; the coach paid Plante 50 cents per game to retain him and so the team ' s popularity . Afterwards , Plante began to receive various offers from other teams ; he was offered $ 80 a week — a considerable sum in those day — to play for a team in England , and a similar sum to play for the Providence Reds of the American Hockey League . However , Plante passed up these offers ; his parents wanted him to finish high school , and he graduated with top honours in 1947 . Upon graduation , he took a job as a clerk in a Shawinigan factory . A few weeks later , the Quebec Citadelles offered Plante $ 85 a week to play for them ; he accepted , marking the beginning of his professional career . Playing career . Minor leagues . Jacques joined the Quebec Citadelles in 1947 . It was while playing for the Citadelles that Plante started to play the puck outside of his crease . He developed this technique when he recognized that the team ' s defense corps was performing poorly . Fans found Plante ' s unconventional playing style to be exciting , but it angered his managers , who believed that a goaltender should stay in net and let his players recover the puck . Plante had come to the conclusion that as long he was in control of the puck , the opponent could not shoot it at him . This is standard practice for goaltenders today . The same season , the Citadelles beat the Montreal Junior Canadiens in the Quebec Junior Hockey League finals , with Plante being named most valuable player on his team . The Montreal Canadiens ' general manager , Frank Selke , was now interested in acquiring Plante . In 1948 , Plante received an invitation to the Canadiens ' training camp . On August 17 , 1949 , Selke offered Plante a contract with the Canadiens ' organization . Plante played for Montreal ' s affiliate Montreal Royals , earning $ 4 , 500 for the season , and an extra $ 500 for practicing with the big club . In January 1953 , Plante was called up to play for the Montreal Canadiens . Bill Durnan , the goaltender who played for Montreal when Plante first began , had retired , and Gerry McNeil — the top goaltender for the Canadiens — had fractured his jaw . Plante played for three games , but in that short time , he failed to escape controversy . The Canadiens ' coach Dick Irvin , Sr . did not wish his players to stand out by any addition to their regular uniforms . Plante always wore one of his tuques while playing hockey , and after an argument with Irvin , all of Plante ' s tuques had vanished from the Montreal locker room . Even without that good luck charm , Plante gave up only four goals in the three games he played , all of them wins . At the end of 1952 , Plante was very successful with the Montreal Royals . However , Selke had to sign Plante to a professional contract and move him from the amateur Royals . The reason was that NHL rules stated that Plante would have been subject to being drafted by another NHL team if he had not signed a pro contract . Plante was then assigned to the Buffalo Bisons of the AHL . Later during the 1952 – 53 NHL season , Plante played for the Canadiens in the playoffs against the Chicago Black Hawks . He won his first playoff game with a shutout . Montreal won that series — and eventually the Stanley Cup and Plante ' s name was engraved on the Cup for the first time . On February 12 , 1954 , Plante was called up to the Canadiens and established himself as their starting goaltender . Five straight Stanley Cups . By the end of the 1953 – 54 NHL season , Plante was well - entrenched within the NHL . In the spring of 1954 , he underwent surgery to correct his left hand , which he had broken in his childhood . The operation was successful . For the 1955 – 56 season , Plante was the unchallenged primary goaltender of the Canadiens ; Gerry McNeil had not played the previous season , and as a result he was sent to the Montreal Royals ; Charlie Hodge , Plante ' s backup the previous season , was sent to a Canadiens ' farm team in Seattle . Later that season , Montreal won the Stanley Cup — the first win in five successive seasons . The next season , Plante missed most of November due to chronic bronchitis , a product of the asthma that had affected him since childhood . During the 1957 – 58 NHL season , the Canadiens won their third straight Stanley Cup despite injuries to Plante and other members of team . Plante ' s asthma was getting worse , and he sustained a concussion with just a few weeks left in the season ; as a result , missed three games of the playoffs . In the sixth game of the Stanley Cup finals , Plante ' s asthma was making him dizzy , and he was having difficulty concentrating ; he collapsed at the end of the game , after teammate Doug Harvey scored the series - winning goal . The Canadiens went on to win the Stanley Cup again at the close of the 1958 – 59 season . During the 1959 – 60 NHL season , Plante introduced the goaltender mask into a regular game . While Plante had previously used his mask in practice to avoid getting injured , starting in 1956 , after missing 13 games due to sinusitis , his coach , Toe Blake did not permit him to wear it during regulation play . However , on November 1 , 1959 , Plante ' s nose was broken when he was hit by a shot fired by Andy Bathgate , three minutes into the game against the New York Rangers , and he was taken to the dressing room for stitches . When he returned , he was wearing the crude home - made goaltender mask that he had been using in practices . His coach was livid , but he had no other goaltender to call upon and Plante refused to return to the goal unless he wore the mask . Blake agreed on the condition that Plante discard the mask when the cut healed . The Canadiens won the game 3 – 1 . In the ensuing days Plante refused to discard the mask , and as the Canadiens continued to win , Blake was less vocal about it . The unbeaten streak stretched to 18 games . Plante did not wear the mask , at Blake ' s request , against Detroit on March 8 , 1960 ; the Canadiens lost 3 – 0 , and the mask returned for good the next night . That year the Canadiens won their fifth straight Stanley Cup , which proved to be Plante ' s last . Plante subsequently designed his own mask , and masks for other goaltenders . He was not the first NHL goaltender known to wear a face mask , as Montreal Maroons ' Clint Benedict wore a crude leather version in 1929 to protect a broken nose , but Plante introduced the mask as everyday equipment ; the mask is now mandatory for goaltenders . Trade to New York and first retirement . During the 1960 – 61 NHL season , hampered by pain in his left knee , Plante was sent down to the Eastern Professional Hockey League ' s Montreal Royals . He was later found to have torn cartilage in his knee causing the terrible pain ; the knee was surgically repaired during the summer of 1961 . The next season , Plante became only the fourth goaltender to win the Hart Memorial Trophy ; he won the Vezina Trophy for the sixth time , as well . The 1962 – 63 season was unsettled for Plante . His asthma had worsened , and he missed most of the early season ; relations with his coach , Toe Blake , continued to deteriorate due to Plante ' s persistent health problems . Later , Plante was at the center of a major controversy when he claimed that net sizes in the NHL were not uniform , thus giving a statistical advantage to goaltenders playing for the Chicago Black Hawks , Boston Bruins , and New York Rangers . His claim was later confirmed to be true , and was the result of a manufacturing error . After the Canadiens were eliminated for the third straight year in the first round of playoffs in the spring of 1963 , there was mounting pressure for change from their fans and media . There was growing tension between Plante and his coach , Toe Blake , because of Plante ' s inconsistent work ethic and demeanor , and Blake declared that for the 1963 – 64 season , either he or Plante must go . On June 4 , 1963 , Plante was traded to the New York Rangers , with Phil Goyette and Don Marshall in exchange for Gump Worsley , Dave Balon , Leon Rochefort , and Len Ronson . Plante played for the Rangers for one full season and part of a second . He retired in 1965 , while playing for the minor - league Baltimore Clippers of the American Hockey League . At that time , his wife was ill , and he required surgery on his right knee . On retirement , Plante took a job with Molson Brewery as a sales representative , but remained active in the NHL . In 1965 , Scotty Bowman asked Plante to play for the Montreal Junior Canadiens in a game against the Soviet National Team . Honoured to represent his country , Plante agreed , and after receiving permission from both Rangers who owned his rights , and Molson , he began practicing . The Canadiens won 2 – 1 , and Plante was named first star of the game . Comeback to professional hockey . At the beginning of the 1967 – 68 NHL season , Plante received a call from his ex - teammate Bert Olmstead seeking some help coaching the expansion Oakland Seals . Plante coached mainly by example , and after the three - week training camp he returned home to Montreal . In June 1968 , Plante was drafted by the St . Louis Blues ; he signed for $ 35 , 000 for the 1968 – 69 NHL season . In that first season with the Blues , Plante split the goaltending duties with Glenn Hall , and went on to win the Vezina Trophy for the seventh time , passing Bill Durnan ' s record . While playing for the Blues in the 1969 – 70 playoffs , against the Boston Bruins , a shot redirected by Phil Esposito hit Plante in the forehead , knocking him out and breaking his fibreglass mask , That game proved to be his last for the Blues , and he was traded in the summer of 1970 to the Toronto Maple Leafs . He led the NHL with the lowest goals against average ( GAA ) during his first season with the Maple Leafs . At season ' s end , he was named to the NHL ' s second All - Star team , his seventh such honour . He continued to play for the Leafs until he was traded to the Boston Bruins late in the 1972 – 73 season . He played eight regular season and two playoff games for the Bruins to finish that season , his last in the NHL . Plante accepted a $ 10 million , 10 - year contract to become coach and general manager of the Quebec Nordiques of the World Hockey Association in 1973 . He was highly dissatisfied with his and his team ' s performance , and resigned at the end of the 1973 – 74 season . Coming out of retirement once more , Plante played 31 games for the Edmonton Oilers of the WHA in the 1974 – 75 season . Plante retired during the Oilers ' training camp in 1975 – 76 after receiving news that his youngest son had died . Retirement and death . Plante finally retired from hockey in 1975 , after the death of his youngest son . He moved to Switzerland with his second wife , Raymonde Udrisard , but remained active on the North American hockey scene as an analyst , adviser and goaltender trainer . He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1978 . In the fall of 1985 , Plante was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer . He died in a Geneva hospital in February 1986 and was buried in Sierre , Switzerland . When his coffin was carried from the church following the funeral mass , it passed under an arch of hockey sticks held high by a team of young hockey players from Quebec , visiting Switzerland for a tournament .