Jacques Plante

Jacques Plante Page 8

by Raymond Plante

  In the world of sports, everything is relative: an enormous amount of discussion goes on. There are more armchair analysts than athletes. Thus, in the early 1960s, the sportswriters of all the dailies tossed the question back and forth in their columns: who was the best goaltender in the NHL? Jacques Piante’s style was compared to that of Terry Sawchuk, and to that of the young Glenn Hall – although both these goalies had been largely inspired by Jacques’ innovations. Sawchuk himself declared that, in his opinion, Jacques was the world’s best goalkeeper. In spite of this, negative comments still came in:

  “If he didn’t have Harvey in front of him …”

  “If the Canadiens weren’t such a strong team…”

  “He doesn’t have to stop as many pucks as the other goalies.”

  Or, in defence of Jacques Piante, it was said, “Yes, but it’s harder to block shots when you only have a few coming at you: your concentration suffers.”

  And, in the headlines of a major daily newspaper: “Jacques Piante is the key to the Canadiens’ success.”

  Dickie Moore declared: “No team could win the Stanley Cup, let alone win it many times over without an excellent goaltender. And we have the best.”

  In any event, Jacques’ absences never went unnoticed. The Habs just weren’t the same without him in the nets. And in spite of his nagging respiratory problems, Jacques did the impossible by playing in all the games. Champions must show their courage and unshakable resolve.

  The 1960–1961 NHL season was marked by the departure of a legend: Maurice Richard, injured too often during the previous seasons, realized that his performance was flagging. It wasn’t advisable to ask a star to stay on as an ordinary player – not a star of The Rocket’s stature.

  It was also the season when the slapshot came into its own. Bobby Hull, the blond comet of the Chicago Black Hawks, commanded the hardest and fastest slapshot in pro hockey. The fastest skater in the NHL, Hull could attain a speed of 50 kilometres an hour after just a few strides. A puck shot by a player going that fast would streak towards the net at 170 kilometres an hour, and a backhand shot, at 155 kilometres an hour. Even a back-hander by Bobby Hull was stronger than a slapshot by any of the other forwards in the League.

  Not all of the goaltenders in the League had adopted the mask as standard protection as yet, but even the last holdouts were seriously considering it. Jacques Piante expressed it eloquently for all of them: “A goaltender shouldn’t even blink when Hull sends up a slapshot. In the fraction of a second, you can lose sight of the puck and let in a goal, or get hit by the puck. Even if your leg pads are thick, you still feel the impact. And if you get hit on the arm or even on the fingers, you feel an electric shock that puts your arm out of service for a few minutes.”

  That season, more and more players took their cue from Bobby Hull. Although they didn’t all achieve the same results as the Black Hawks whiz, slapshots became the norm in NHL games, with the puck travelling at much higher speeds than in the past. Added to this was the fact that hockey sticks were designed with thinner, curved blades; this modified the puck’s trajectory when a player fired off a shot. That year, the total number of goals scored in the League rose sharply – by 232 points! Not surprisingly, the Black Hawks won the Stanley Cup, spearheaded by Bobby Hull.

  It was Jacques’ most difficult year since joining the big league.

  In the very first games of that season, he realized that he had a worrisome problem in his left knee. When he least expected it, he would feel an excruciating pain. It would mysteriously cease, then return a few days later.

  He acknowledged that the pain was there, but he couldn’t understand how or when he might have injured the knee. Perhaps he had been hit without realizing it. Perhaps a player had fallen on the knee during a fast and furious goal-mouth scrum, and he hadn’t noticed the effects right away. Jacques just couldn’t remember.

  The pain got progressively worse. He began to feel it every time he made a lateral slide or executed a rapid block with his leg. Sometimes it was unbearable. He knew that it was making him less agile on the ice: by trying to protect his left knee, he would falter slightly in making the appropriate blocks with his leg pads. This chink in his armour affected all the interrelated movements of his performance and took the edge off his reflexes. To try to compensate for this weak point, Jacques would make the first move when an opponent was coming towards the net. It was the most foolhardy thing that a goaltender in the big league could do: shots by the best forwards were simply too fast and too accurate.

  When Jacques had X-rays taken at the hospital, no abnormality was detected. But he was still experiencing severe pain. What bothered him most of all was the idea that the fans, and soon, the team management, would start to think that the problem was not in his knee, but in his head. Rumours began to circuiate that besides his chronic asthma, Jacques Piante was suffering from other problems – psychosomatic ones.

  Finally, Jacques appealed to his coach: “I can’t go on like this, cercueil! What can I do to get rid of it?”

  Toe Blake had seen a lot of hockey. He had known many athletes at their peak and had seen more than one of them struggling against an unaccountable, episodic slump. He had never been a goalie himself, but he offered a tentative answer: “Bill Durnan’s decline started when he was sliding onto the ice too much. The more often he slid, the longer it took him to get up again.”

  “What should I do, then?”

  “Try staying on your feet as much as you can. During the practice sessions, don’t slide onto the ice, even if your net fills with pucks. During the games, try some other moves as well. Then you’ll be able to get up faster when you do have to slide.”

  Another time, Jacques confessed to Blake that he was having difficulty responding to backhand shots. The coach immediately re-organized the practice sessions to include more backhands, without telling his players that the exercise was mainly for Jacques’ benefit. However, in the end, Blake came back to the same old argument: “It’s the mask, Jacques. It makes you feel too sure of yourself.”

  But in this matter, Jacques stood firm. “If I have to take off my mask, I’ll hang up my skates.”

  It had taken Jacques so long to convince the hockey world of the importance of the protective head-gear that he wasn’t willing to give up at the first sign of a problem. But he did agree to undergo a series of visual tests at the Montreal General Hospital. Jacques was tested for the speed at which he could identify colours of different intensities projected at different angles – first with his mask on, and again without the mask.

  When the session ended, the results were not divulged immediately. A few days later, Jacques was relieved to learn – from the newspapers – that his mask had nothing to do with any imperfections in his performance.

  Nevertheless, he was willing to admit that things were not going well for him in the net. He was letting in goals of a type that he had never allowed before. As the season wore on, he looked less and less like the extraordinary goalkeeper of the previous five years. It was obvious that he lacked confidence, and it seemed that he had lost his usual deftness and the fine sense of timing that is crucial for excellence in goaltending. And finally, he regularly complained of knee pain.

  The armchair analysts rashly concluded that Jacques was becoming delusional and that it was the beginning of the end of his career. As for his complaints of pain, the least unkind of these amateur commentators said that the goaltender had found the perfect excuse for his poor performance that year. The sports world is notoriously fickle; however, this time, the statistics confirmed their impressions. In the first 21 games of the season, Jacques had already allowed 69 goals, and the Canadiens had won 10 games, lost 7, and tied 4. For a few days in
November, after a bang-up collision with Dickie Moore, Jacques could barely walk.

  On November 26th, Blake removed Jacques from the lineup and sent in Charlie Hodge. The little substitute played very well during Jacques’ absence: of the 20 games that they played from the end of November until mid-January, with Hodge in the nets, the Habs won 15, lost 4, and tied one.

  In spite of this forced rest, Jacques’ condition did not improve. With less action demanded of it, his left knee seemed to be regaining its strength, but it was still fragile, and Jacques was unable to carry out his saves in his usual style.

  It was the low point of that unlucky season. Rumours that Jacques Piante was about to be traded began to circuiate. People were even saying that he himself had asked Frank Selke to trade him to another team.

  “What? Who told you that?” Jacques asked the reporter from Parlons Sport during a telephone interview. “I never said that to anyone, and I would never ask such a thing. The Canadiens are the best team in the League as far as making money is concerned. Why would I change for a worse situation? A Rangers or a Bruins player might ask to be traded, but not a Canadiens player, cercueil de cercueil!

  “When are you coming back to play?” asked the journalist.

  “How do expect me to know that? The doctors don’t even know!”

  But crucial weeks were passing, and the team management decided that something had to be done. In the same office where Jacques had known some of his happiest moments, Frank Selke did not mince words: “Listen, Jacques, I think you’re going nowhere by letting yourself get stuck in this situation. I’ve got to think about the end of the season, and if, for some reason, I had to replace Charlie Hodge, what would I do? It doesn’t look like you’re getting any better. If you can’t get all your skill back, I’m going to have to send you down.”

  “Send me down where?” asked Jacques apprehensively.

  “To the Royals.”

  Jacques swallowed in consternation. Truly, calamity had struck – it really wasn’t his season. After giving a consistently astounding, record-breaking performance as a goaltender, he was back where he had been nine years ago, before starting out with the Canadiens. For an instant, jumbled images flashed through his mind, of a long road of determined efforts and glory-covered achievements – all to end with this painful fall into anonymity.

  Of course, Jacques could have chosen to retire at this point: there is nothing humiliating about stopping when you can no longer carry out the job, especially when you’re in pain. But this thought was quickly brushed aside by a resurgence of the familiar excitement of taking on a challenge. Jacques felt that he had yet another battle to fight. His sense of honour was aroused; he didn’t waste any time arguing. He lifted his head and looked straight at his employer. “When do you want me to report to the team, Mr. Selke?”

  The general manager smiled at Jacques warmly. He had obviously been relieved of a heavy burden. “That’s exactly what I expected you to say, Jacques. You’re going to play against the Sudbury Wolves tomorrow night,” he said.

  The Royals were limping along in last place in the Eastern Professional League standings, but Jacques couldn’t have cared less. For the first time in years, he didn’t have to aim for a championship or a trophy. He could measure himself by his own standards. His only ambition was to work hard to recover his strength and to play with all of his old skill – to become Jacques Plante again.

  “I want to play hockey, and I want to know what I am capable of,” was his answer to a reporter who was rather intimidated at interviewing a man who had been one of the best and most celebrated players in the NHL less than a year before.

  And to the reporters hint that he had fallen from grace into a rut, Jacques’ reply was characteristically proud and optimistic. “I am not at all embarrassed wearing the Royals’ uniform,” he said. “It’s a chance for me to get back into shape, to find out if my reflexes are still good.”

  Another motive for sending Jacques to the Royals was that his presence would boost attendance for Floyd Curry’s team, which was only attracting an average of 2,000 fans per game, due to its poor showing. The Royals’ general manager, Frank Carlin, counted on Jacques to bring that number up to 5000. Even if Jacques might not be able to take the team to the finals, at least he would save it from a heavy financial loss.

  It turned out that Jacques’ stint in the minor league lasted only three weeks. His average with the Royals was 3 goals-against, but he made up for it by his showmanship and crowd appeal – skating far from the net, advising his defencemen and stopping opponents on breakaways before they could get near the net. In fact, Jacques was playing so well that Frank Selke revised his opinion and got in touch with him.

  Although Charlie Hodge had given an excellent account of himself during the time that he replaced Jacques, he was less confident in the nets than Jacques was. His teammates had adjusted their play in consequence by concentrating more on defence, and the Habs’ results reflected this. Although the situation wasn’t catastrophic by any means, the Canadiens were in second place in the League standings, behind the Maple Leafs. Players on opposing teams were becoming familiar with the new goalie’s technique, and some of them had figured out how to outplay him. Hodge seemed less alert and was starting to allow goals more frequently.

  It was time for a reassessment of the situation. Selke arranged a meeting with Toe Blake, Bill Head, and Jacques.

  “We want to get back into first place,” said Selke. “I think we need Jacques’ experience and fighting spirit.”

  Toe Blake was skeptical and glanced at Jacques, whose knee was taped up.

  “Give it to us straight, Jacques – how do you feel?”

  Jacques didn’t hesitate for a second: he decided to be perfectly honest.

  “I feel about seventy-five per cent of my capacity.”

  Blake was worried and went into a confidential huddle with Bill Head to discuss the goalie’s condition in greater detail. A few minutes later, the team physiotherapist came over to Jacques and took him aside. “They want to hear you say that you’re a hundred per cent fit. You know that a goalie’s most important quality is self-confidence,” he confided.

  Jacques shook his head and replied, “I can’t tell them I’m a hundred per cent when it’s actually only seventy-five. But I think that seventy-five per cent isn’t too bad, considering the circumstances. And I should add that Jacques Piante at seventy-five per cent of his capacity is as good as any other goalie in the NHL.”

  Bill Head grinned.

  “I think that’s the answer they’d like to hear.”

  They did like it, and Jacques went back onto the ice for the Canadiens. The gamble paid off: Jacques allowed 43 goals in the last 19 games of the regular season, maintaining a goals-against average of 2.26, and the Habs reached the finish line ahead of the Leafs.

  That year, Bernie Geoffrion was NHL scoring champ, a few points ahead of second-place Jean Béliveau. He also won the Hart Trophy, and most importantly, duplicated Maurice Richard’s fabulous record of 50 goals in a season. However, Geoffrion had played 64 games to reach the half-century mark, whereas the Rocket had accomplished this feat in only 50 games. Setting a new record, Doug Harvey won the Norris Trophy for the sixth time.

  The Habs were shaken by the Black Hawks’ power when they met their adversaries in the first round of the post-season playoffs. The Chicago goalie, Glenn Hall, achieved two shutouts, in the fifth and sixth games respectively. To play in these two last games, Jacques had to have his knee anesthetized.

  Toe Blake chewed on his cigar in frustration and complained about the referees’ decisions and the lines-men’s calls. A
t the end of the last game, he finally lost control of himself, jumped onto the ice, went over to the linesman and tried to punch him. The Habs’ coach was given a stiff fine for this misdemeanour.

  The night the Canadiens were eliminated, their goaltender knew that he had an important decision to make. His asthma was still troubling him, and, even if the X-rays hadn’t revealed the cause, his knee was hurting so much that it kept him awake at night. Jacques was exhausted. He had to choose between retirement and an operation. Perhaps the doctors would be able to discover the problem by exploratory surgery: what they couldn’t see from the outside or in the X-rays, they might find by probing inside the knee. His future depended on it. Unless the gossips were right: perhaps the injury was the fruit of his imagination after all.

  From any point of view, Jacques was at a turning point in his career. He wanted to know what the future held for him. Again, he decided to risk all. As curious as ever, Jacques wanted to get underneath the surface of things. He decided to undergo surgery.

  “Did they find out why my knee was hurting me so much?”

  Jacques had hardly opened his eyes in the recovery room before asking the question that had kept him in suspense for so many months. The attending nurse smiled at him.

  “Yes, they found out. Your cartilage was really messed up.”

  Jacques went back to sleep, relieved. By nature, he was too brave to be a hypochondriac, but even so, he had experienced some serious self-doubt.

  A few hours later, when the anesthetic’s effects had completely worn off, the surgeon, Dr. Shannon, informed Jacques that the cartilage in his knee had been in very bad condition, in three places. In one place, it had lost all its elasticity; another piece was crushed between two bones, where friction caused intolerable pain; and a third section of cartilage was badly torn.

 

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