A manufacturing error was discovered: the makers of the Chicago, New York, and Boston nets had soldered the crossbars between the two vertical posts instead of on top of them, which meant that those crossbars were a good five centimetres lower than regulation height. The detective products were sent back to the factory, and henceforth, all the nets in the NHL have had exactly the same dimensions.
Reacting to a comment that it hadn’t made any difference because both goaltenders in a game had identical nets to defend, Jacques retorted: “Cercueil! That’s true in a game. But in a season, it makes a big difference. There was a higher mathematical probability that a goalie playing for Chicago, New York, or Boston would win the Vézina trophy. Glenn Hall, for example, played 35 home games in a smaller net, while I played 35 games in a larger net at the Forum.â€
Once again, Jacques had demonstrated his acute sense of observation and his deep knowledge of hockey. He had first noticed the difference in crossbar heights during a game against the Black Hawks in Chicago. When he took up his position in exactly the same way that he did at the Forum, his back was touching the crossbar. Before going public with his findings, he had carried out the same test at Madison Square Garden and at the Boston Gardens.
This small victory was little more than a diversion, as Jacques’ problems remained unresolved. At thirty-four years of age, had the star goalie lost his punch? That was the opinion of some of the commentators, who noted that the Habs had scored the highest number of goals ever that year, and therefore, the team’s problems didn’t lie with its offence.
The nightmare continued even during the playoffs. Jacques was blamed for the team’s rapid elimination in the semifinals against Toronto. With the Canadiens facing sudden death in the fifth game of the series, Jacques was feeling so low that he only went onto the ice for the last few minutes of play. The bleu-blanc-rouge suffered a humiliating 5–0 defeat. It was the last Straw for Toe Blake: he couldn’t keep a man in doubtful health as his number 1 goaltender.
In May, Sam Pollock, Frank Selke’s right-hand man, went to talk business with Rangers manager Muzz Patrick. According to the grapevine, the Canadiens were willing to trade Jacques Plante and Bernie Geoffrion for Lorne “Gump†Worsley, Don McKenney, Dave Balon, and Camille Henry.
Third Period
“Un Canadien Errant…â€
From 1963 to 1965, Jacques Plante tends goal for the New York Rangers.
10
Lonely in Manhattan
Tuesday, June 4, 1963.
When he climbed into his car on a sunny morning in early summer, Jacques Plante had no idea that he was starting out on a very long journey. He had risen early and was looking forward to an enjoyable day. First, he was going to play golf with a teammate, defenceman Jean Gauthier. Then, he was going to the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in downtown Montreal where the managers of all six NHL teams were meeting for the annual draft session. Jacques was feeling no qualms about his future. Playing golf was undoubtedly helping him forget his disastrous season with the Habs.
In the clubhouse locker room, the young Gauthier had other things on his mind besides his still-hesitant golf game. He had just completed his first year with the Canadiens. He loved being with the team, but he knew that its lacklustre performance at the end of the season would result in some changes.
“I’m afraid I’m going to be traded,†he confided to the goaltender. “You’re going to the meeting today. Maybe if you said a word to the management…â€
Jacques promised to do what he could.
Just after twelve noon, he got into his car and drove in the direction of downtown Montreal. He was listening to a Dalida song that he liked when a news flash interrupted the program.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are interrupting our regular broadcast to bring you a special news bulletin: the Montreal Canadiens hockey club have just signed the most spectacular agreement in the history of the NHL. They have traded seven players, including their star goaltender, Jacques Plante, to the New York Rangers.â€
Jacques slammed on the brakes and pulled the car over to the side of the road. His heart was beating hard and he wondered if he was dreaming. But he knew that he was awake: everything around him was sharp and clear. He turned up the volume with a shaking hand.
“The man that many experts have called the greatest goaltender in modem hockey is going to the Rangers, along with centre Phil Goyette and defenceman Don Marshall. In exchange, the Canadiens are getting goaltender Lorne ‘Gump’ Worsley and forwards Dave Balon, Léon Rochefort, and Len Ronson, all players from the minor league.â€
Jacques was in shock. He hesitated, trying to decide what to do. Should he give in to his feelings and go home? But where would that get him? He would just have to sit there, biting his nails until the official phone call carne. No, that wasn’t his style. He braced himself.
Since he had first donned skates, since he had first watched a puck hurtling towards him, he had never imagined himself in anything other than a Canadiens uniform. In that sense, the news was a personal catastrophe, the end of a dream that had been the underlying motivation of his whole life. On the other hand, Jacques had never let himself be defeated; he had always viewed adversity as a challenge and had gone to meet it with his eyes wide open. It is the main characteristic of a good goaltender: the determination to hold the fort at all costs, in any situation. It is also the essence of valour.
Jacques started up his car and continued driving in the same direction. He would show up at the Queen Elizabeth as planned.
The radicai trade in the works had, as might be expected, given birth to a slew of rumours, but no one had imagined that so many heads would fall. Doug Harvey last year, and now Jacques Plante; who would be next? What would remain of the great club now that it had cut all the core players loose? Bold headlines expressed outrage and doubt:
A stroke of genius, or insanity? The experts are pessimistic.
Have the Canadiens paid too high a price in reorganizing the team?
The club’s decision was either defended or panned:
Jacques Plante had a lot of trouble standing up to pressure. – Toe Blake
Jacques Plante is the greatest goalkeeper I have ever seen in action. – Chuck Rayner, former goaltender and member of the New York Rangers organization.
The Rangers have struck it rich: Selke has given them the winner of six VÉZINA TROPHIES. – Phil Séguin, La Patrie.
If the Canadiens got the best of the bargain, it will only show in a few years. – André Trudelle, La Presse
Still in doubt about Jacques’ departure from the team, the same La Presse writer commented:
Just one month ago, general manager Frank Selke said to us in his office: ‘Jacques Plante in good health is our man. We’re not interested in a sick Jacques Plante.’
We have the impression that general manager Frank Selke, and many fans as well, have never understood the ‘Plante case.’
He was criticized for being a showman (Plante himself admitted the truth of this), for saying that he wasn’t well before every important game, for blaming the defencemen for most of the goals that he let in.
Between ourselves, those were harmless foibles that we should have accepted as a tradeoff for keeping a great champion, who, like Doug Harvey, belongs to the Rangers now.
In Montréal-Matin, popular sportswriter Jerry Trudel offered an insightful analysis:
PLANTE ALWAYS ACTED
IN THE TEAM’S BEST INTEREST
It is my humble opinion that the Canadiens’ managers have cut off their noses to spite their faces by trading Jacques Plante, the greatest goaltender in NHL history, as well as one of the most intelligent observers and students of the game of hockey….
It may be that Plante, in the eyes of certain people, is guilty of having a
strong mind and character. It appears that, since he began with the Canadiens, there has been a deliberate effort to suppress his individuality and fit him into a rigid mould. It was Dick Irvin who made him stop wearing his tuque during games, a harmless bit of colour that added to the team’s personality….
When Irvin was coach, Plante accepted everything without saying a word. But as the years passed, and he proved himself as an extraordinary goaltender, Jacques refused to meekly accept everything he was told, especially when he was convinced that it wasn’t in his best interest.
One day, Plante decided to wear a facemask. There was an immediate uproar and some of his employers teased him about it. Others even ridiculed him. But it didn’t get them anywhere. Jacques stuck to his guns, even when people tried to convince him that every one of his mistakes was caused by wearing the mask….
He embarrassed the NHL authorities last year by proving that the nets were not all standard size in the League. In other words, when something was wrong, Plante, as a person of conscience, refused to say that everything was all right.
The same applied to his physical condition. Whenever Jacques Plante felt ill, he said it out loud, and when he felt that he couldn’t carry out his job to the best of his ability, he didn’t hesitate to ask to be replaced….
But it seems that his independent spirit and outspokenness did not please everyone, and a lot of people began to find him quite troublesome and willful. This was because they refused to believe in the sincerity of the man, although he had shown his immense integrity a long time ago.
I don’t know the reasons behind trading Plante for Worsley, but I tend to think that Jacques was a thorn in the side of many people who are used to getting their own way all the time.
While the commentators and fans wrung their hands or scratched their heads over this surprise move, thoughtful analyst and talented writer Louis Chantigny dug a little deeper to try to get to the bottom of it. He was given a disturbing answer by Frank Selke himself: “We had to make a definite stand and give an example that would create a stir. Some of our players were getting too rich, too indulged by honours and glory. When we told them that they might be traded if their playing was not up to par, they refused to take us seriously and figured that they were assured of finishing their careers with the Canadiens. Maybe now, they’ll understand that the same thing could happen to any of them. Next season, I expect that Marshall and Goyette will play better for the Rangers than Rochefort, Balon, and Ronson will play for us. I don’t have any illusions about that, but I had to rebuild the team with an eye to the future.â€
Selke confessed to Chantigny: “If Plante plays his best for the Rangers, and Worsley plays his best for us, we will still be getting the worst of the bargain.â€
The reporter felt outraged. Selke remained silent for a moment. Then, in three blunt sentences, he revealed his true thoughts on the matter.
“Jacques Plante is an extrovert who can’t put his personal interest aside for the benefit of the team. In the circumstances, no matter how brilliant a goaltender he may be, it was better that he left. That’s what you can say in the papers.â€
Chantigny continued his investigation and went to interview Jacques at home, to hear his version of events. Of course, the fact that Jacques was responsible for the team’s pension fund and that he and Don Marshall were the Canadiens’ representatives in the Players’ Association had affected his relationship with the club management. But the problem went deeper than that.
Jacques opened his heart to the journalist. “Last year, I was reprimanded several times, and I’m not surprised that I was traded. Selke blamed me for everything, Cercueil! He criticized me for talking too much, for going out of my crease too often, for lifting my arms up in the air when we won – if it wasn’t one thing, it was another. According to him, I crouched down too low in front of the net; I wasn’t covering the corners well enough. Or he said I was causing too many stops in play when we were short-handed, when in fact, my teammates had asked me to do it so that they could get their wind back. Frank Selke would call me into his office for any little thing. I had gone in there so many times in the last few years that I felt like I worked there! Underneath it all was the fact that Selke wanted to turn me into somebody else.â€
It was true that a deep misunderstanding had grown up between the two men. It was, more accurately, a generational conflict between two refined hockey analysts – one who defended the traditional way of playing, and one who had always been a great innovator. Louis Chantigny expressed it this way:
Like all innovators who revolutionize an established pattern to create a new one adapted to their colossal scale, Plante has always been the target of sarcasm and criticism…. A thousand and one examples show that it is not always easy, and that it can be aggravating to be around creative minds. Jacques Plante and Frank Selke were like fire and water, and countless incidents showed it! But what did this personality conflict matter as long as Jacques Plante was performing the difficult task that was assigned to him with such brio? And how is it that a good psychologist like Frank Selke didn’t understand that a dull conformist could never have become an incomparable goaltender and the greatest innovator in the entire history of hockey?
For Jacques’ family, the news of the trade had the effect of an earthquake. Comfortably installed in the suburbs of Montreal, the Plantes had no desire to leave their home. Jacqueline decided that it was best for her to stay in Canada with the couple’s two sons while Jacques was in New York tending net for the Rangers.
From then onward, Jacques’ lot would be that of those visionaries who have strived for change, whose one aim is to go further, in spite of opposition from all sides, even if the consequence is exile and loneliness.
That summer, Jacques was as active as usual. As he truly enjoyed amateur sports, he umpired at Pee-Wee baseball tournaments and played golf regularly. He received a much bigger volume of mail than at any other period in his career. On his typewriter, he answered every one of the fans who had written, concerned about his future. It seemed that he had never been so loved as now, when he was leaving the country.
Characteristically, in New York, the comments on Jacques’ approaching debut with the Rangers were uniformly positive. Newspapermen in the Big Apple love winners, whether they are artists or tycoons: they make good copy. And when these heroes are from the sports world, the enthusiasm doubles. Although hockey wasn’t usually given much space in the papers, especially in the middle of the baseball season, Jacques Plante’s arrival was featured on the front of the sports section. The Rangers’ management left no stone unturned as far as publicity was concerned: a red carpet was rolled down for the man that New Yorkers now considered the uncontested top goaltender in pro hockey.
Jacques was not indifferent to this show of adulation, nor to the fact that when he signed his name to a contract guaranteeing him a salary of $24,000 a year, he had become the highest-paid goaltender in history. He was also pleased that would be reunited with his old buddy, Doug Harvey, with whom he had shared so many exciting victories.
And Jacques talked. Still hurting from the trade, he spoke frankly about his aims and ambitions for the season. The challenge was daunting: the Rangers, who had been shuffling along in the NHL for years, faced a steep climb to get to the top. The team would reach the playoffs, Jacques promised, adding that the same might not apply to the Canadiens that year.
He even dared to make a public evaluation of the top scorers on his former team. According to Jacques, the Habs only had three sure bets since Dickie Moore had announced his departure, but even those three had problems. Jean Béliveau was ill and had slowed down, Bernie Geoffrion didn’t hit the puck as hard as before, and Henri “the Pocket Rocket†Richard missed many scoring opportunities by trying to make the opponents’ goalie come out
of his net too often.
Naturally, due note was taken of Jacques’ comments in Montreal.
Jacques’ new season began in Chicago on October 9, 1963. He was injured in the second period of the game and was unable to stop the Rangers from losing 3–1.
His appearance at the Forum scheduled for the following Saturday was the news event of the week in Montreal. Jacques’ declarations seemed to have roused his former teammates. It was an emotion-filled encounter, and some commentators even saw it as a vendetta. When the two teams met, several individuals had their own personal accounts to settle. The raging Canadiens stormed their ex-goaltender’s net from the first seconds of the game. Jacques faced a veritable bombardment: 59 shots in one game! Anyone but Jacques Plante would have let in at least a dozen shots. However, not even a champion is infallible.
In the end, the Habs won 6–2. The scorers: Geoffrion with 2 goals, and Jean Béliveau, Robert Rousseau, Dave Balon, and John Ferguson with one apiece. The Habs were glad to prove to their fans, to themselves, and especially to Jacques Plante that they were still a power to be reckoned with. But in a paradoxical tribute, Jacques was cheered by the same Montreal crowd that had booed him in the Canadiens net a few months before. Wearing the white Rangers’ sweater that night, he had captured the hearts of the often-fickle public. The sports world is truly bizarre at times.
After playing two games, Jacques realized that he had faced 99 shots! It was going to be a long, tough season. In spite of this formidable beginning, he managed to obtain a shutout in the first game played at home in Madison Square Garden, a 3–0 victory over Detroit. Named as first star of the game, he skated onto centre ice holding his mask at the end of his out-stretched arm amid a huge ovation. Having blocked 33 shots with acrobatic prowess, he waved to the crowd as if he were a Broadway star…and that’s precisely what he was during his time with the Rangers.
Jacques Plante Page 10