Jacques Plante

by Raymond Plante

  The campaign would not be easily fought: the conqueror was still fragile. During a game in Toronto at the end of October, Jacques suffered another asthma attack and had to go home to Montreal to recuperate.

  Although he was adored by the New York public for his showmanship and appreciated by the press for always providing good quotes, Jacques was not really happy playing for the Rangers. He missed his family. It was the first time that he had lived away from them and the solitary life was difficult to bear. After the euphoria of the first few weeks of the season, he discovered that he fitted the description of the typical lonely stranger in Manhattan.

  There was another problem that was even more difficult to ignore: Jacques the perfectionist often found himself grinding his teeth at the way the coach managed the Rangers. Although he had not always agreed with Toe Blake and Frank Selke, Jacques was aware that both of them had an innate sense of the game of hockey and knew how to manage championship teams. In the Big Apple, Red Sullivan was miles away from being a good strategist. In fact, his coaching career was no more brilliant than his career as a player; he had been a steady but uninspired centre-wing, and his achievements as an NHL coach never rose above mediocre. It was not surprising that Jacques, with his exceptional talent as a game analyst who noticed every detail of play, saw things from a different point of view than his coach.

  One night at about eleven o’clock, Sullivan made the mistake of telephoning his goaltender to verify if he was observing the team curfew rule. The veteran NHL player could hardly believe his ears. He answered Sullivan curtly: “Cercueil! I’ve been in bed since nine o’clock, and I just managed to get to sleep. Now I won’t be able to fall asleep again for another three or four hours. I don’t want you to call me again. Ever.”

  And George “Red” Sullivan never did.

  Another thing that perturbed Jacques’ routine-loving nature was the fact that the team was obliged to practise in distant arenas whenever the ice in Madison Square Garden was preempted by a show. Thus, when the team was at home, Jacques often had to travel out to Long Island to the practices. This meant that the morning after an exhausting game, he would have to leave home at 8:30 a.m. and only return at 5:30 in the evening. As a result, he felt tired all the time and did not have a chance to get his strength back for the games. His performance in the nets suffered accordingly.

  Jacques had the impression that he was far away from everything that he cared about. Although a few French Canadians played for the Rangers, he did not associate closely with any of them. Most of the time, he declined to attend the dinners and parties that were organized for the players and their wives. He experienced the painful loneliness of an outsider, a loneliness that was interrupted by rare sparks of glory. On March 7th and 8th, he played exceptional games against the Canadiens – two vintage Jacques Plante performances. The first game was a 3–2 victory at the Forum on a Saturday night, and the second was a no-goal tie at Madison Square Garden.

  Unfortunately, the Rangers (without Doug Harvey, who had only played 14 games before being sent down to the Quebec City Aces), finished the regular season in fifth place, and therefore did not qualify for the playoffs. The season’s overall results were considered negative, as 242 goals had been scored against the team – a higher number than any other team in the League. Jacques’ personal results: 3 shutouts, 220 goals allowed in 65 games, and a 3.38 goals-against average, a lamentable career high. The Canadiens, on the other hand, finished in first place. However, the great team had had to be shaken up to get there.

  In spite of some bad moments in the NHL, Jacques never stopped enjoying sports during his summer vacations in Quebec. He still felt the need to be active, and to be totally involved in a game – to feed on the electricity generated by competition.

  The summer following Jacques Plante’s first season with the Rangers, a group of sportsmen decided to revive the traditional Native-American game that had drawn enthusiastic crowds until the 1930s: lacrosse. The game resembles hockey in many ways. The principle is straightforward: the players must catch and hold a leather ball in a net attached to the end of a metre-long stick (the crosse) and hurl it into the opposing team’s goal. A lacrosse field is the same size as a hockey rink. There are six players: five forwards and the goalkeeper. The players are not as well protected as hockey players: they wear light helmets and running shoes.

  There were four teams in the revived organization: the Montreal Nationals, the Caughnawaga Indians, the Ville St. Pierre team, and the Drummondville Athletics. The league needed a star attraction to get off the ground. One of the promoters, who included sportswriters Michel and Gilles Blanchard, had the idea of inviting Jacques Plante to join the Nationals. After all, in his younger days, Jacques had been a champion lacrosse player both in Shawinigan and Quebec City. But how could they lure a pro like Jacques, who watched his money closely and who was under contract to the New York Rangers? The most courageous of the organizers went ahead and telephoned him. Jacques was enchanted by the proposal. He immediately replied that he would ask Muzz Patrick for the necessary permission. It was granted.

  Jacques was willing to do anything for the sake of sports. He agreed to play for the minimum salary, ten dollars a game, and to bring his own soap and towel to the games. He was ready and willing to give all he had in his new role. Of course, goalkeeping in lacrosse is completely different from minding a hockey net. Even if Jacques still wore a mask, he couldn’t come out of his net. Also, the lacrosse goalie can’t stop the play, but has to relaunch the attack as soon as he catches a shot.

  Soon, Jacques was back in the Montreal Forum, tending goal for the Nationals and wearing a sweater that bore an uncanny resemblance to his red, white, and blue uniform of yore. More than just a figurehead, Jacques performed spectacularly for his team.

  Gilles Blanchard was impressed by Jacques’ generosity and lack of condescension during his stint with the Nationals. After Jacques’ death, he wrote:

  Plante, the big star, had become a member of the Nationals, and was the best advertisement that the team and the sport could have wished for.

  He gave his best in the practices we held in the yard of the Collège Ste. Marie, in the long trips in school buses, and in the endless interviews that he granted.

  Plante brought along his soap and towel like the rest of the team members, was paid his ten dollars a game like all the others, and showed the same schoolboy enthusiasm….

  And what a professional! He had the statistical low-down on every player, knew their feints, their every strength and weakness. Once the question of salary was out of the way, he dedicated himself, body and soul, to the team, just like in his greatest Stanley Cup years.

  I remember very well that when the coach was ready to end to the practice, Jacques would prolong an already exhausting session, saying, “One more ball into the goal and then to the showers.”

  Then Jacques would block throws over and over again. He knew our playing abilities better than we did ourselves. We would never go back to the dressing-room without his O.K.

  The summer after that, Jacques played four games for the Caughnawaga Indians. Unfortunately, the league was soon dissolved, but it certainly wasn’t for any lack of dedication on Jacques Plante’s part.

  The Rangers did not achieve any better results in the 1964–1965 season. Jacques was having new problems.

  Living away from home, he felt as if he were struggling through a thick fog, step by uncertain step. The sports world is disloyal to its prodigai sons, even those who have revolutionized the sport and given it everything they had, all their hopes, talent, and brilliance.

  At the beginning of the season, Jacques was sent down to the Baltimore Clippers until he had recuperated from an injury to his right knee. Baltimore hockey fans were given full value. Like all those who had come to appreciate Jacques Plante’s greatness, they were treat
ed to spectacular saves. Jacques went back and forth between the Rangers and the Clippers. He played only 33 games in the Rangers’ net that season, and for the second year in a row, his goals-against average was above 3 per game.

  In June 1965, less than forty-eight hours before the annual NHL draft session, Emile “The Cat” Francis, the Rangers’ new manager, called reporters to a press conference where it was announced that goaltender Jacques Plante was hanging up his mask and skates and would not be playing for the Rangers next season.

  Jacques had had an operation on his right knee; it was not yet clear if it had been successful and if he would be in shape for the season. Once again, Jacques was obliged to start from scratch. However, the pre-dominating reason that he had decided to leave the sport he loved had to do with his family. Jacqueline had become depressed during her husband’s absence and had lost a lot of weight. Jacques realized that he should return home to be with her and their two sons. Michel, fourteen, and Richard, ten, were at an age when they particularly needed their father. Also, although he never voiced the thought, Jacques felt that he had lost some of his spark by playing with diminished physical capacities for a second-rate team.

  The Quebec City Aces of the American Hockey League saw a golden opportunity and immediately offered Jacques a yearly salary of $25,000 to play for them – with the incentive that he was exempted from practices. However, Jacques turned this friendly offer down. Molson Breweries, owners of the Canadiens, had offered him a job as promotion manager; Jacques decided to accept it. He could live at home while still being able to support his family.

  In any case, Jacques was far from poverty-stricken. He owned the family home in Laval-des-Rapides, outside Montreal, as well as three revenue properties of four apartments each. Jacques was also looking forward to enjoying one of his favourite hobbies: oil painting.

  All sorts of rumours about Jacques were flying around the hockey world. Punch Imlach, the Toronto Maple Leafs coach, a man who had always known how to get the best out of his veteran players, declared that he would hire Jacques if the Rangers, who were obviously in trouble as far as net-minding was concerned, would release him from his contract. Jacques was well aware that several NHL teams were interested in him. It was gratifying, of course, but his New York experience was still too fresh in his mind. He needed time for his wounds to heal. It was vital for him to return to ordinary life.

  The different masks designed and used by Jacques Plante during his career.

  11

  The Red Night

  A new Molson Brewery representative was touring the province of Quebec: his name was Jacques Piante. At last – perhaps for the first time in his life – Jacques relaxed, taking life as it came. Looking back, it seemed as if he had never done this before. From his earliest childhood, he remembered having to overcome one obstacle after another to escape from poverty and to win a place in the world. Like all true champions, Jacques was proud: he had aimed for the top and had reached it. Yet he had always known that it wouldn’t last forever. Even with the most determined efforts to prolong this euphoric plateau, time catches up with everyone; it is impossible, even for the best, to stay at the zenith for more than a brief moment. What goes up must come down – no matter how high the mountain peak that you have scaled and claimed, no matter how great the dream that has inspired you and your fellow human beings.

  Wherever he went, the Molson’s rep had his hand shaken and was asked for his autograph. He had an easy manner and a natural charm that held him in good stead in his new job. He enjoyed being recognized and loved to talk to people. When Jacques Plante told a story, it was never short. He was used to being a public figure by now. He wasn’t intimidated by being the centre of attention in a crowd or by meeting new people – and in these months, he met a lot of them. Along with Maurice Richard, Jacques Plante remained the best-known hockey player of his time. Each in his own special way, both the Rocket and Jacques contributed to making their sport better known. More than simply by their skill, they had elevated hockey’s standards of excellence: Richard by his wholeheartedness and his fiery playing style, and Jacques Plante by his intelligence and imagination.

  In a few brief years, hockey had suddenly grown beyond its original boundaries. NHL managers were already negotiating the first major league expansion. At the start of the 1967–1968 season, there were new teams all over the continent, as far as Los Angeles and Oakland on the Pacific Coast. This was partly due to the achievements of Maurice Richard and Jacques Plante.

  Now that he represented the company that owned the Montreal Canadiens, Jacques was associated with the Habs’ days of glory wherever he went. He played in several promotional golf tournaments and still excelled at that game; he also played tennis, improving steadily He was free to live in the modest way that he had chosen.

  However, deep within himself, Jacques was torn apart. He knew that he should appreciate his graceful retirement from professional sports, but he wasn’t satisfied watching other people play. He had started so young that being active in sports had always been the centre of his existence. Now, when he watched a hockey game, he would get butterflies in his stomach and twitches in his legs. When the season recommenced that year, his way of combatting his restlessness was to play in the Quebec Old Timers League. Jacques’ passion for hockey was alive and well, and he still adored stopping pucks.

  It was exceedingly difficult to get rid of a deeply ingrained habit, and everyone could see that what the Molson Brewery rep missed most was playing top-level hockey. The Junior Canadiens coach, Scotty Bowman, already a wily strategist and proud competitor, knew it better than anyone else.

  The Soviet National Team was about to arrive for its second North American tour. It hadn’t yet become the team that would teach a lesson to the NHL pros in the 1970s, but it was nonetheless a very smooth, well-trained club with fast, skillful players in excellent physical condition, each one with a precise role that he carried out effectively. The Russians were dangerous. They had won several world amateur championships as well as the gold medal at the 1964 Winter Olympics.

  And, like the year before, the Soviets were going to play against the Junior Canadiens. In 1964, the Juniors had been helped by several NHL veterans who were now with the Quebec City Aces: Gump Worsley, Doug Harvey, Red Berenson, Léon Rochefort, John Hanna, and Bill Sutherland. The Russians had beaten the Juniors 6–5 in 1964. Scotty Bowman did not want a repeat red victory on December 15, 1965.

  This time, the Junior Canadiens included some very young players who would later make their mark in the National League: defencemen Serge Savard and Carol Vadnais, forwards Larry Pleau and Christian Bordeleau, and last but not least, centre Jacques Lemaire. The Russian managers agreed to allow the Juniors to add five players from the Central League Houston Apollos to their ranks; thus, the lineup would include Noël Picard, Jean Gauthier, Bill Inglis, Norman Dennis, and André Boudrias. The only missing ingredient was a high-calibre goaltender.

  Scotty Bowman thought of Jacques Plante. Newly retired, he might agree to play. Bowman talked it over with team president David Molson and general manager Sam Pollock. Neither of them saw any reason why Jacques shouldn’t play.

  They called Jacques just one week before the first game against the Soviet team was to take place. How could a hockey-crazy athlete like Jacques have turned away from this exciting challenge? After ironing out a few formalities with the Rangers, who still owned him, and having received permission from Molson Breweries, Jacques began practising. He needed to sharpen his reflexes and regain his suppleness. He had lost some of his edge in his games with the Old Timers, in which slapshots and bodychecks were prohibited.

  But what was the legendary Jacques Plante doing in this situation? He had voluntarily retired. He had nothing left to prove as far as hockey was concerned. By playing in this type of highly publicized confrontation, he had little to gain but a lot to
lose.

  People’s curiosity got the better of them when it was announced that Jacques was going to play; it was an unexpected chance to see the famous goaltender wearing the Habs’ uniform for a last time. The promotional machine was effective: 10,000 fans had been expected, but 14,981 people showed up to fill the hockey temple on St. Catherine Street.

  The Soviets arrived at the Forum with three victories on Canadian soil under their belts. They had just trounced the Canadian National Team 4–0 in London, Ontario, after having beaten them 8–6 in Quebec City on the preceding Sunday.

  In Montreal, the first period was played at a very fast pace. The “little” Canadiens were clearly finding it difficult to ward off the Russians’ methodical attack. The red-uniformed players succeeded in making several electrifying breakaways, but were blocked by a vigilant Jacques Plante who brought the fans to their feet by a succession of acrobatic saves. He seemed to always be in the right place to stop the opponents’ accurate shots on the short, fast passes from their teammates. For a goaltender who hadn’t played a “real” game in over eight months, Jacques demonstrated astonishingly good timing. At the end of the period, both teams left the ice without having scored, but Jacques had stopped 13 shots, 5 more than his Russian counterpart, Viktor Zinger.

  In the second period, the Junior Habs defence was more alert. The game became a more balanced struggle, with the Juniors covering their adversaries closely. But in the middle of the period, during a penalty to Noël Picard, defenceman Vladimir Brezhnev took a screened shot from the blue-line. Jacques didn’t see it in time, and the Russians scored their first goal.